A Tale of 'Demon' Rights
by epalladino
Summary: Trevor Bruttenholm considers Hellboy his son. How much are others willing to respect the status that this gives Hellboy? Do we owe respect to a demon? 'Part Two' takes place in 1949. Warning: Epilogue contains movie spoilers.
1. Prologue and Part One: Respect the Son

**Author's notes**: This fic is loosely based on a Del Toro backstory item about HB's younger years with a few details thrown in from the Mignola comics. Main characters are not mine, the characters that are mine (doctors, nurses, etc.) are basically functional to the plot.

The postwar years, especially the 40's and 50's were instrumental in the development of our contemporary understanding of human rights. I thought it would be interesting to consider how this all would apply to a sentient being who was not human. Eventually to be in three parts. The Prologue and Part One are complete and I'm working on the rest. This could be considered a kind of sequel to "Father's Day Gifts", but the two stories could be read in any order.

**A Tale of 'Demon' Rights **

**Prologue:  
**  
Trevor Bruttenholm, the director of the FBI's Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense since its inception in the early 1940s, had been born in England. He moved to the United States in 1944 after his discovery of Hellboy during an operation against Nazi occultists on an island off the coast of Scotland. He then resided with the infant demon at a series of secret military bases eventually ending up in New Mexico.

Professor Broom, as his name is correctly pronounced, insisted on teaching the demon child to call him Father. During these early years Broom had missed being able to obtain decent tea and to have real crumpets instead of those dreadful muffins that they insisted on serving him from military mess halls. In 1951 Broom's BPRD finally established its first permanent headquarters in Boston. Broom relished this move to a city where they actually had decent bakeries and stores that imported teas and pastries from Europe.

Unfortunately, the establishing of these headquarters was for a long time delayed by interminable red tape dealing with questions as to Broom's right to sole custody of the demon he insisted on calling his son. There were also other issues dealing with Hellboy himself. How do you classify a demon? What kinds of rights would the United States government grant him?

The only thing that they actually knew for sure about Hellboy was that he was not human. Some highly placed officials in the federal government felt that this immediately ruled out Hellboy having any legal status whatsoever. As far as they were concerned Hellboy was property, property that legitimately belonged to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do with as they pleased.

Many government officials took one look at the small and usually mild- mannered Trevor Bruttenholm, dressed as he always was in tweeds, wool vest, and silk tie, and figured that he would be easy to push over.

They were very, very wrong.

**A Tale of 'Demon' Rights: Part One: Respect the Son**

**Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Medical Wing  
Boston, Massachusetts, 6/21/1959  
**  
Outside of a quite expensive gift given in June of 1956, Hellboy seldom marked Father's Day with much more than getting up earlier than usual to get together a special breakfast tray for the man he called his father. Even though Hellboy wasn't yet 15 years old, he was close to seven feet tall. That combined with the other oddities of his appearance (red skin, tail, shaved-off horns, right hand that was at least five times larger than normal) meant that going out shopping for gifts was a bit difficult. This was especially true since the general public was not supposed to know that Hellboy even existed.

Hellboy almost never ate breakfast with his father. His father was a very busy man and usually was already deep in his work when his demon son would even think about rolling out of bed. Father's Day was the one day out of the year when Hellboy made a concerted effort to be up earlier than his father. The fact that it was Sunday and his father, as a good Catholic, honored the Sabbath helped.

Everybody in the BPRD's kitchen would let Hellboy pretend that he was the one who was getting everything ready. A special table would be set up in Broom's office and two trays of food would be put together for Hellboy to carry there; one with specially-ordered English breakfast tea and crumpets for the professor and a much larger one with black coffee, 'pamcakes', and toast for Hellboy. Hellboy wouldn't touch a crumpet with a ten-foot pole and thought of tea as coffee's weaker cousin. The collection of food was finished off with a number of jars of special marmalades and jams that both of them liked.

It was again Father's Day, but there was no special table set up in Broom's office, no special trays of food prepared for Hellboy to carry there. Hellboy's own usual breakfast of pancakes and coffee was sitting un-tasted in his sleeping quarters. Some were beginning to suspect that he hadn't eaten or slept for almost three days.

Every time they turned around he would be caught pacing the corridors outside of the BPRD's Medical Wing where his father had been located for over a week. Trevor Broom was sick, very sick. At first the doctors thought it might be heart trouble because the primary symptom had been chest pain. Now the doctors were suspecting a form of cancer, but were not exactly sure what type.

Hellboy's presence in his father's private hospital room had been generally tolerated toward the beginning of his stay, but over the last several days he was encouraged by the BPRD staff doctors to stay away. It seems that they were concerned that the outside experts coming in to consult on the case might see him.

Hellboy entered the medical wing and walked up to the door of his father's room.

Martha Wilson, the head nurse, came out of her office into the corridor and saw Hellboy looking forlornly at the door. He was dressed in his usual outfit adopted since becoming an official member of the BPRD: black shirt, black leather pants, black work boots (covering cloven hooves), and that tan-colored leather trench coat. The only thing missing from the ensemble was that specially designed utility belt that contained a number of pouches for holding such weapons as talismans, relics, herbs, and grenades, and a holster for a handgun the size of a cannon.

However, monster hunting was not Hellboy's chief concern at the moment so the belt and gun (called, of all things, the Good Samaritan) were left behind in his room.

Hellboy turned when he heard Martha coming.

"Hey, come on Marty, can't I even go in to see him for five minutes? I'll try not to be in the way. I'll be really, really quiet. Just let me go in, please? It's Father's Day, you know."

Martha sighed to herself, trying not to show anything to Hellboy. She suspected that Dr. Patterson's desire to keep Hellboy away was related to more than just the chance that he might be spotted by an outside doctor. Tests were starting to come back with positive results and these results did not look good.

Robert Patterson, chief surgeon of the BPRD's own medical staff, was one of the best surgeons in the United States, as well as having a strong background in the latest developments in oncology. Trevor Broom couldn't be in better hands medically, but, like a lot of specialists, Patterson's people skills often left much to be desired.

If it had been up to Martha Wilson, Hellboy would have been given more information as to what was going on with his father. However, it was not up to her. Unfortunately, Dr. Patterson had a tendency to think of Hellboy as more like a very large dog kept by Broom as a kind of pet than a son who had a right to visit his father and to be given information about his status. Other people who looked at Hellboy and saw only his sheer size completely forgot that he was still only 14 years old. Martha hated seeing him wandering the corridors outside of the medical wing and looking so lost.

At least she was still head nurse and could grant Hellboy some visiting privileges and saw no reason to completely block his access to his father. Martha found Hellboy's, mostly unexpressed, devotion to his father touching.

"Okay, H.B., I'll let you go in for a while, even longer than five minutes. But, do me a favor and let me rustle you up a chair that can hold your weight. The last time you sat in one of the room chairs it was never the same again. Go ahead and go on in, but please don't sit on anything until I get back with that chair. And if your father is sleeping do not, absolutely do not, wake him up."

Hellboy quietly opened the door to his father's room. It was relatively dark even though the room lights were never completely turned down. Trevor Broom was indeed asleep. Hellboy strode over to the bed and looked down at his father.

Broom was only around 43, but right now it seemed to Hellboy that he looked at least twice that age. He looked too thin and seemed to have tubes connecting to almost every part of his body. He was still losing weight despite the extra intravenous nutrition they had been giving him over the last several days.

Broom's left arm was under the thin sheet that covered him, but his right was lying on top and Hellboy could see that his father still had his favorite rosary twined about his wrist. Hellboy had given his father that beautiful rosary, as part of a special Father's Day gift three years earlier and Broom almost never removed it.

He also noticed that set up next to Broom's bed was a small table that had his favorite bible, the beautiful olive wood box that had been the other half of the gift from three years ago, and a framed picture. These had not been in the room the last time Hellboy had been allowed to see his father and this worried him. It showed that his father suspected that he was going to be there for a very long time.

Hellboy picked up the picture and looked at it. He knew that this picture was a doctored up version of a top secret original. It showed a young Professor Broom posing amidst a group of soldiers in the ruins of an abandoned monastery. They were all standing in the pouring rain smiling at the camera. Broom appeared to be smiling down at a broken column of grey stone. Hellboy knew that that column of stone, in the original picture, was really his own infant self.

He only ever saw the original of that picture once and was amazed at how tiny he had been at one time. The only thing about him as a infant that wasn't small was his right hand. That enormous right hand had seemed almost as big when he had been a baby as it was now that he was full grown. It had taken him a long time to grow into that hand and learn to control it.

The door to the room suddenly opened and two orderlies appeared hauling a very large chair into the room. They were followed by Martha Wilson, who watched as Hellboy set the picture back on the table.

"Well, H.B., here's a chair that I think can support you," Martha directed the orderlies to set up the chair in a place that was neither too far away from nor too close to Broom's bed. "As far as I'm concerned you can stay as long as you want. Just don't make trouble for the nurses coming in to care for him. He's not scheduled to see any doctors today, except Dr. Patterson who may stop in later just to check up on things. And if he complains about your being here, you just tell him that I authorized it."

Martha and the two orderlies started to move out of the room.

"Thanks Marty," Hellboy paused and then continued following Martha into the hallway.

"I want you to tell Dr. Patterson that he needs to talk to me. Whenever he sees me he won't talk about anything and I have a right to know what's wrong with my father. I don't like the way he looks and I think knowing the worst is a hell of a lot better than this guessing and worrying I'm doing right now. I know that you probably know more than you're letting on, but you can't tell me without Patterson's OK. If you see him tell him what I said."

Martha turned to leave and then turned back. "I'll make sure to. I agree totally that you should be more informed. But, let me say this. Your father's care is in very good hands. As a medical wing of a federal research facility we have access to experimental techniques and treatments not generally in use by outside hospitals. Since we also deal with unique individuals such as yourself we have certain technologies that the rest of the world couldn't imagine outside of science fiction. I think he really has a better chance here than almost anywhere else in the country."

Hellboy sighed, "I hope you're right Marty. Thanks again for the chair."

The nurse and the two orderlies left. Hellboy returned to the room, took off his coat and hung it over one of the other chairs in the room. He settled into the chair that he had been given and watched his father sleep.

After a while he closed his eyes and just listened to the gentle beeps of the heart monitor that were a reassuring reminder that his father's heart was still beating. Two nurses came in after about an hour to change dressings, exchange the empty intravenous bottles for full ones, and to take some blood.

The nurses had been informed that Hellboy would probably be in the room, so they weren't surprised to see him sitting in the chair. He appeared to be asleep and they decided not to wake him up. One of the nurses grumbled about the inconvenience of Broom's rosary always being on his wrist so she decided to remove it. As she started to do so Broom woke up.

"Please," he said, "Don't take it off. Leave it there. I don't want to take it off." "But, sir," the nurse complained, "It's always in my way and a couple of times it's gotten tangled up in the tubes and wires. I don't really think it's a good idea for you to wear it right now."

Hellboy sat up with a grunt.

"Hey, what's up? Is something wrong?"

He had really fallen fast asleep and had forgotten where he was. The people who had been suspecting that Hellboy was sleeping poorly of late were not wrong, so it wasn't surprising that he had drifted off. But he was a little annoyed with himself for doing so.

Professor Broom by this time had become a little more awake and was delighted to find that Hellboy was in the room with him.

"Son, it's good to see you. I was starting to wonder when you would come."

Hellboy walked over to the bed and knelt down to be closer to his father.

One of the nurses spoke, "Now, about this rosary. It's really going to have to come off. We're going to have to take more blood and it's just in the way all the time."

Hellboy spoke up, "Look, Pop, I think she's right. Why don't you let me put it back into this pretty box here on the table? That's what I gave you the box for, really."

Broom shook his head. "All right," said Hellboy, "how about if I wear it for you. I'll put it on my own wrist just like you wear it on yours." Broom smiled, "I think I like that idea better."

Hellboy gently removed the rosary from his father's wrist. He worked hard to hide how concerned he was with how thin his father's arm seemed to his touch. He then twined the rosary around his own left wrist where it fit much more closely than it had done on Broom's thinner one. "I'll take good care of it for you. I was starting to worry that it could get lost."

"Maybe you're right, Son," Broom sighed, "I just don't like the idea of being without it. Where have you been the last couple of days? I was beginning to think that you were getting too busy to visit me."

Hellboy took his father's hand but said nothing.

One of the nurses explained, "Dr. Patterson seems to think it's better if Hellboy stays away. He's concerned that one of these outside doctors might see him. The poor kid has been hanging around the corridors outside of the medical wing for the last two days."

Broom grimaced. "Why wasn't I informed of this? I am going to have to have a talk with Dr. Patterson. It's one thing to have you kept out of the purview of the general public, but it's quite another thing to limit your movements within the Bureau in this unreasonable manner. The BPRD is your home. Any outside doctor that sees you can be debriefed. I won't let Dr. Patterson use this as an excuse to limit your right to visit me. I've been through nonsense like this before. Some people refuse to respect the fact that I consider you my son. I wouldn't take it when you were five and I'm certainly not going to allow it to start up again now."

At that moment Dr. Patterson walked into the room not even looking at Hellboy as he entered. Hellboy stood up and backed away from the side of the bed. Suddenly he felt very large, very red, and very out of place.

"How are you feeling today, Trevor?" Dr. Patterson asked.

"Somewhat better, now that I have had a chance to visit with my son," Broom said in a somewhat pointed manner.

Dr. Patterson picked up the chart hanging at the foot of the bed and looked at it while he spoke. "Nurse Wilson informed me that you were going to be here, Hellboy."

Somehow, he often managed to appear to be ignoring Hellboy at the same time that he was speaking to him.

"Did she tell you I wanted to talk with you?" Hellboy looked anywhere but at the doctor as he asked the question.

"Yes, she did," Dr. Patterson finally looked at Hellboy when he spoke. For some reason Robert Patterson was usually unable to see any particular emotion in Hellboy's face. To his eyes the face just looked impossibly large and red. However, this time he thought he could see worry in Hellboy's yellow-colored eyes.

"Look, Hellboy," the doctor said as he returned the chart and glanced over at Professor Broom in the bed, "we just don't know enough yet to give you much information."

Professor Broom spoke up, "I want you to tell my son everything we know."

Dr. Patterson looked at Broom, "If you insist."

Hellboy walked closer to the bed. He hadn't eaten anything all day and suddenly his stomach felt both very tight and very empty at the same time.

Dr. Patterson then launched into an explanation of what they currently thought was ailing his father. He seemed unconcerned whether Hellboy understood him or not. He never paused for questions and showed little consideration for how the information was affecting him.

However, Broom could see when Hellboy seemed totally lost or worried and would interrupt Patterson to offer his son some understanding of the issues involved. When the explanation was over Patterson continued his examination of Broom while Hellboy dropped back down into his chair and propped his chin up with his huge right hand. He closed his eyes and kept hearing words like 'lymphoma', 'tumor', and 'inoperable' spinning around in his head.

"Son, don't look so worried," he heard his father say.

He opened his eyes again and his father continued, "It really is quite a small tumor. It's just that its location in the chest between the heart and the lungs makes it hard to get at surgically. We really have high hopes for this experimental treatment called 'targeted chemotherapy'. It's really wonderful how they are starting to be able to target certain chemotherapies directly to the tumor that needs to be eradicated as opposed to sending it through the whole body. This way you get the most benefit of the treatment and the least effect on healthy tissues. The side effects should be less as well. We just need to take the time to research which chemotherapy is the best for this type of tumor. I am sure everything will be just fine."

If Broom had any doubts or fears they were not ones that he showed to Hellboy.

After the nurses had finished their ministrations and left the room, Dr. Patterson spoke up, "I'm just not convinced that he needed to know all this information, Trevor. Most of it is just going confuse and worry him needlessly."

Hellboy stood up, finally having the nerve to say how he felt, "How long was this bastard going to keep me shut out—no word, no information, no visiting. Sorry, Pop, I know you don't like it when I swear, but Patterson here should know that I was already worried, a hell of a lot more worried than I am now. Confusing information is better than being completely in the dark. What you told me about this chemotherapy stuff makes it sound like you have a chance. I was afraid that no one was saying anything because it was hopeless."

He sat back down suddenly, feeling a little dizzy. He realized that he was famished and couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten anything. Dr. Patterson just stared at Hellboy like he had never seen him before.

Trevor Broom broke the silence, "I am not completely pleased with the way my son expressed himself, Robert, but I am in complete accord with his sentiment. I am especially displeased with the fact that I was not informed that he was being turned away from visiting me. In the future I expect that he will be given, within reason, all of the information that he asks for and free access to visit me. I would like to feel, at the very least, that my son is being accorded some respect."

Dr. Patterson nodded, "It shall be as you wish, Trevor." He opened the door and walked out.

An orderly wheeling a cart with Broom's dinner entered as the doctor was leaving. He helped Broom to sit up and arranged all the plates and utensils so that they could be easily reached.

Broom stopped the orderly before he went out, "Does the hospital kitchen have some other foods they are serving other than this bland stuff I'm eating? I would like to have some food brought for my son," he looked at Hellboy, "I can always tell when you haven't been eating. It's something that happens with your skin tone."

"I believe we still have some of the stuffed cabbage that was being served today, sir."

Hellboy wrinkled his nose, "I don't like cabbage."

Broom smiled, "If you don't eat the stuffed cabbage I will make you leave to find something else to eat. If you want to stay longer it will have to be the stuffed cabbage. You like meatballs in tomato sauce. Stuffed cabbage isn't all that much different from that. You don't have to eat the cabbage if you don't want to."

"I do want to stay, so I guess I'll take the stuffed cabbage. I guess I am a little more hungry than I was when I first came here today." The orderly left to get this other tray of food.

When it came Hellboy found that he liked stuffed cabbage better than he thought he would. "You know, Pop, the 'stuffed' part of it's pretty good and even the cabbage isn't half bad."

While they were both eating Professor Broom inquired as to how Hellboy had been doing with his French studies. Even though his son had been working as a field agent for a few years now, Broom did not like the idea of him completely giving up working with the tutors who had been hired to teach him. Hellboy reached into one of the larger pockets of his coat and brought out a French edition of Beaumarchais's play Marriage of Figaro.

"You know, I kind of like reading this one. It's pretty funny."

They were both finished eating so Broom rang for the carts to be taken away. After the orderly went out again, Broom asked Hellboy to read aloud to him from the play.

At one point Martha Wilson looked in to see how things were going and noticed that Hellboy had set the room table up so that both he and his father could read from the book. Every so often Broom would help him with a word that he didn't understand. She smiled and went back out.

After about twenty minutes of this Broom started to get tired again and Hellboy realized that it was now time to go. "I'll be back sometime tomorrow and maybe we could read a little more of this. I appreciated the help."

Hellboy got up to leave, but before he went out the door he turned back. "Father, you mentioned something earlier about not standing for something when I was five years old. Were you talking about what happened on my fifth birthday?"

"I was indeed," said Broom, "How much of all of that do you remember?"

"I think I remember most of it," said Hellboy, "But what I remember the most was that you promised me that you would live forever."

Broom smiled, "Yes, I do believe I did say something to that effect that day. I will try very hard to keep that promise."

"Good," said Hellboy as he opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

In Part Two: what was it that happened on HB's fifth birthday that unfortunately made this day one of the worst in Trevor Bruttenholm's life? 

Thanks for reading, Elizabeth Palladino


	2. Part Two: Protect the Son

**Author's notes for Part Two**: Hellboy once said of his father, "He loved me when others wanted to destroy me." As related in the story Father's Day Gifts, Trevor Bruttenholm had to make a long trip in June of 1949. Why had he been forced to make this trip? And what was it that happened later that year to make what should have been a special day so difficult for him? At the time, Hellboy was not completely aware of what was going on. He only knew that his father was determined never to let anything separate them.

**A Tale of 'Demon' Rights: Part Two: Protect the Son**

Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm, a British scientist of the paranormal, had been appointed by President Roosevelt in 1943 to be the director of the brand new FBI Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. It was during one of the Bureau's first field operations against Nazi occultists that Broom first encountered Hellboy.

Trevor Broom was still a British citizen and had discovered Hellboy on an island off the coast of Scotland. Therefore, in some circles, it was felt that the paranormal being that Broom had named Hellboy should become the property of the British government. On the other hand, the FBI felt that since Hellboy had been discovered by Broom while he was working for them that he belonged to the United States government.

All Trevor Broom knew was that he had become very attached to Hellboy and was only willing to reside in a country that allowed him guardianship of the infant demon. Broom eventually moved residence to the United States since President Roosevelt showed himself willing to allow Broom to keep custody of Hellboy. Roosevelt also wanted to keep Broom's BPRD operating after the war and still wished him to head it.

The British scientist and the demon child he came to look upon as his son eventually relocated to a secret Army base in New Mexico. This base became the first location after the war of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. A bungalow was constructed on the base that was to function both as headquarters for Broom's organization and as his residence.

Trevor Broom, as a scientist, was also eager to study Hellboy. While the appearance of the child looked to be just like a stereotypical red devil, complete with horns and tail, he also seemed to have some evidence in his tissues and blood plasma of human DNA.

There was a secret Congressional committee set up to study Hellboy and a series of tests were eventually conducted to see if it was possible to ascertain his true nature. Many scientists were secretly sent to New Mexico to conduct these tests and to meet the unique being that was the subject of this testing. These tests proved inconclusive.

Especially futile were any attempts to study Hellboy's right hand, which was extremely large for the size of the child and appeared to be made of solid stone.

Any tools or equipment used in the attempted study of the hand had a tendency to explode into sparks and shards of metal.

Even though the young Hellboy showed incredible resistance to pain, he did not enjoy these frequently invasive tests and often cried bitterly while they were being performed. As Trevor Broom became more attached to Hellboy, he became reluctant to put the child through even more drastic testing.

He decided to stop the tests all together since he felt they were yielding no useful results. Thus began a bitter tug of war between Trevor Broom, who felt that any more testing of this nature was not in the child's best interest, and the Congressional committee, who felt that Broom did not allow the testing to go far enough.

Professor Broom was called, in June of 1949, to attend further meetings of this committee. He reported what findings he had so far and explained his reasons for stopping the testing.

A certain senator who was a member of the committee spoke up, "We the members of this committee object to Professor Broom referring to this creature as his son. We consider that this tendency toward over- sentimentalizing has compromised his objectivity as a scientist and has interfered with the workings of this committee. Further testing must be performed if we are ever to determine the nature of this thing he insists on calling his son."

Broom retorted, "I will stop referring to Hellboy as son during these committee meetings if you insist that I do so. I would, therefore, ask in return that the members of this committee stop referring to Hellboy as 'creature' or 'thing'. However, this still does not negate my point that further testing is futile and will accomplish nothing more than putting Hellboy through needless pain."

The various members of the committee were not in agreement as to further action and Trevor Broom was sent back to New Mexico.

Hellboy, while his father had been away at these meetings, attended classes at the school on the base designed for the children of the personnel who resided there. Hellboy's own natural intelligence, combined with past tutoring by his father, meant that he was able to attend with the older students even though he was not yet five years old.

Trevor Broom, on his return, found that the base was involved in a Father's Day celebration that they had decided to institute that year. All of the children had written their fathers short essays to honor the occasion.

The only exception to this was Hellboy, who wasn't about to write an essay for any reason whatsoever.

Hellboy was later to feel rather guilty about this and somewhat tardily slipped a small note addressed to his father under his door.

Things on the base pretty much went on the same as usual after this time. It was decided that Hellboy was to continue attending the classes with the other children. He seemed to enjoy this and it gave him more of chance to interact with others.

Trevor Broom had started considering the possibility of other less invasive tests, such as psychological and intelligence tests, to research more about Hellboy. He was involved in developing this research when the calendar turned to December 23, the day before Christmas Eve and Hellboy's fifth birthday. It was on that day five years before that Broom had first encountered the demon he called his son.

Since Hellboy's birthday was so close to Christmas, Trevor Broom usually took the whole day off. The two of them would then spend the day together eating their favorite foods (especially chocolate) and watching their favorite movies.

Sometimes if the weather was amenable they would take Hellboy's dog Mac outside and have him chase a ball or fetch sticks. Last year the personnel on the base had turned an empty hangar into a kind of circus and put together a show to entertain Hellboy and his father.

This year Broom had been so busy that he had had little time to consider what he wanted to do to mark this day. Therefore, he was especially displeased when his assistant informed him that two members of the special committee were coming to speak with him late that morning.

One of these members was the person who was also the liaison between the BPRD and the FBI. The other member was the senator who had so objected to Broom's references to Hellboy as his son. These two men were shown into his office.

Broom, who had been seated at his desk, rose to greet them with the intention of offering them seats, when the senator launched into the purpose of the visit.

"Professor Broom, the committee has come to a decision. It was not unanimous, but it did carry the majority. We feel that you are not working toward the best interest of the country in this matter; therefore the creature you have named Hellboy is to be removed from your custody and sent to another facility in order for the testing to be continued. You have one month to comply in this matter. By the end of January of next year you must have all records and findings prepared for the researchers who will be coming to remove Hellboy to this new facility."

Broom, who had still been standing, suddenly sank back down into the chair behind his desk.

"Why? Why are you doing this? I can assure you that these further tests will not reveal anything we do not already know about him. Frankly, some of these proposed tests are nothing short of vivisection; the kinds of tests that I would not allow to be performed on an animal let alone a fellow sentient being. The Nuremberg Code of 1947 is instructive in this matter. I cannot allow my son to be subject to research that is not far from torture."

The senator remained standing, "Sir, you cannot invoke the Nuremberg Code except in cases of human experimentation. Your so-called son has no more standing under Nuremberg than if he had been a laboratory rat. The fact that we have been unable to find out much, if anything, about this creature's true nature is looked upon in many circles as a definite threat to national security."

"Your organization here is a federally funded one and as such anything connected to your Bureau is the property of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to deal with as it sees fit. At this point in time, since the committee decision was not unanimous, the further tests that are being proposed are not quite the thorough tests that many of us would prefer."

At that moment two different things occurred at almost exactly the same time.

The first was that Trevor Broom jumped up from his seat and said in a voice louder than any had ever heard him use before, "No! Absolutely not! I cannot, I will not, allow this to happen!"

The second was that just as he was speaking something whammed up against the door to Broom's office causing it to swing open and a ball rolled in being chased by a largish sized brown dog.

This was followed by a rather chastened Hellboy who immediately assumed that what his father was yelling about was related to his breaking the rule that he not interrupt his father when he had visitors.

"Sorry, Father. Don't be mad at us." Hellboy attempted to collect both ball and dog and to get out of the room before his father became even angrier.

The senator, who had never seen Hellboy outside of some pictures, stared at him in amazement. The look on his face was of someone who had expected to encounter a monster and instead was confronted with a rather polite, well-trained five-year-old child who just happened to look like a monster.

"Hellboy, come over here," This was spoken by the FBI liaison who had yet to enter the fray.

He was someone who had worked with Broom almost from the beginning and highly respected both the scientist and his relationship with the demon child he had virtually adopted.

He was among the members of the committee who had voted against Hellboy being removed from Broom's custody.

He stooped to Hellboy's level as the child walked over to him and placed his arm around Hellboy's shoulder.

"Trevor, I mainly accompanied the senator here today to assure you that the dissenting members of the committee will back you up on whatever action you decide to take on this matter. We have already gathered a petition together recommending to President Truman that he reconsider this matter and return to you the custody granted by President Roosevelt."

Neither the senator nor Trevor Broom had spoken since Hellboy's inadvertent and unexpected arrival into his father's office. The senator managed to find his voice first.

"Professor Broom, if you do not comply with the dictates of this committee you will be held in contempt of Congress and your salary and the funding for your Bureau will be withheld."

Trevor Broom finally found his own voice, which was again very quiet. Hellboy could have informed the senator that the quieter his father became the more furious he really was.

"Believe me, Senator, it is not Congress that I hold in contempt. I have plenty of my own money from an inheritance that I received in England. I will spend every shilling of that before I accept even one more penny of federal funding under these intolerable conditions."

Broom walked up to the FBI liaison who was now standing.

"I would like to thank you for your vote of support. I am sure it is not easy to defy the committee majority. I myself will make a trip to Washington to speak with President Truman. I believe on this trip I will find a way to bring Hellboy with me. It was President Roosevelt's actual meeting with Hellboy as an infant that convinced him that there was nothing threatening about my son. I hope to God that I can be as successful with President Truman."

Hellboy looked up at his father with a bemused expression. The look on his father's face—Hellboy couldn't determine if it was angry, sad, or just very tired.

"Father, did I do something wrong? I really didn't mean for the ball to knock through the door like that."

Trevor Broom bent over and with all his strength hauled this five-year-old demon into his arms and held him close. At his current size Hellboy was getting hard for Broom to pick up and it had been a long time since he had held him in his arms.

It felt good, very good.

"Lee, you are welcome to stay for the rest of the day if you would like," he said to the FBI liaison.

Turning to the senator he said simply, "Go away. I have a birthday party to plan and have already wasted enough time on you."

The senator stalked out without another word.

The FBI liaison excused himself because of some other duties, but said that he would keep in close contact until this whole issue was resolved.

A few minutes later Trevor Broom found himself alone with Hellboy. He collapsed down into one of the office chairs with Hellboy on his lap and held his son even closer.

Nothing had really been resolved that day. All he really managed to accomplish was throwing that senator out of his office. Broom knew he would be back. This senator was not the type to give up easily. And this was certainly not the way he had planned to spend his son's birthday.

"Father, what are you thinking about?"

Broom was almost startled to hear Hellboy's voice. He had become so wrapped up in his concerns that he had almost forgotten that he was still holding his son.

"Just planning the best birthday party that I can come up with." Broom thought for a moment, "Let's see, hangar number three is empty. How would you like it if the men turned it into a movie theater complete with popcorn and Coca-Cola and we watched all of your favorite Gene Autry films?"

Hellboy smiled, "Yeah, that sounds great! Will we get to eat chocolate too?"

Broom lifted Hellboy down from his lap and walked over to his desk.

"We are going to consume every single one of these." He pulled out a large box of Baby Ruth candy bars that he had originally been saving for Christmas.

"Wow, neat!" Hellboy exclaimed, "This is going to be the best birthday ever."

Broom stood next to his desk holding the box of chocolate. He had just been thinking about what an awful day he had been having so far. He smiled at Hellboy and said, "Yes, I do believe it is."

The men who had set up the 'theater' had done an excellent job. They tried as much as possible to decorate up a portion of the empty hangar to look like a movie house. They had even set up a ticket booth and concession stand and brought in very large cushioned chairs for the 'audience'.

Maybe about six of the men were able to stay on through the evening to watch the films with Hellboy and his father. However, they knew that while it was permissible for them to share the popcorn and cola, the chocolate was only to be consumed by the birthday boy and his father.

Later that evening, after having eaten all of the candy bars and popcorn, drank all of the Coca Cola, and watched four complete Gene Autry films, both father and son were very full, very sticky, and very sleepy. They were alone in the now dark 'theater', the other men having gone to their bunks.

At some point during the third film, Hellboy had climbed out of his chair and into his father's lap. Now that the last film was over he appeared to be asleep, his head lying warmly against his father's wool vest.

However, this was something that had happened on every birthday and holiday since Hellboy was three years old; he wasn't asleep he was listening to his father's heartbeat.

Broom remembered when the three-year-old Hellboy had asked him why he ticked like a clock and who was the one who wound him up.

Broom had answered that the 'ticking' was his heartbeat and it was God who wound him up, somewhat dreading Hellboy asking him who 'God' was.

However, at the time this answer had seemed to be enough for the youngster.

This evening Hellboy had another question, "If it's God who winds your heart up, what keeps it going?"

"Love," said his father, "my love for you is what keeps my heart beating."

Hellboy raised his head, "Will you always love me?"

Trevor Broom held him even closer, "Yes, Son, I will always love you."

"Good," said Hellboy as he fell asleep in his father's arms.

_In Part Three: Trevor Broom continues the crusade to have his son accorded the respect and status that he feels he deserves._


	3. Part Three: Continuing the Crusade

**Author's Notes**: Part Three follows directly from the end of Part Two. Therefore the action begins late in the evening of Hellboy's fifth birthday on December 23, 1949. Part Three details a series of events between the end of 1949 and 1952—with a conclusion carrying forward the further course of the BPRD after this time. As some have noted, the events related in A Tale of 'Demon' Rights weave in and out of the events related in my earlier story Father's Day Gifts, but these two stories can be read independently of each other.

The main characters are, of course, not my own. This story is mainly informed by the time frame and backstories from Del Toro's movie. However, some details, including Hellboy's birthday, derive from Mignola's comic and not the movie. A younger version of Father Edward Kelly from the original Mignola comic insisted on making an appearance in Part Three. As far as I can remember, Mignola does not tell you how old the character is so I tried to come up with a plausible age for him; Father Ed is 25 in 1949.

Some of my own characters are merely functional—doctors, nurses, soldiers, etc. The character designated as 'L.' in Father's Day Gifts turns up as 'Lee' in some parts of A Tale of 'Demon' Rights. Neither represents this character's actual name. He wished to keep his function as liaison between the FBI and the BPRD separate from a budding political career in Congress. He is 30 in 1949 and remains the FBI liaison until the advent of Tom Manning in 1984. The character of Broom's assistant and secretary, who is mentioned in passing in Part Two, turns up by name, Paul Johanssen, in Part Three. He is around five years younger than Trevor Broom. At some point in his career with the BPRD he developed the same heart problems that had taken his parents when he was young. He stops working for Broom and takes a part time job in a religious goods store in Boston. Therefore, he is the same 'Paul' who sells Hellboy the box and rosary in Father's Day Gifts in 1956. The name is pronounced as if the first letter of the last name is a 'Y'.

I plotted out a lot of Part Three while on vacation, writing it out by hand while sitting at the beach. For some reason I had the feeling that Trevor Broom took over my pen and insisted on inserting certain plot elements that I had never originally considered. Once these things got into the plot they would not go away. Writing this was certainly an interesting experience. I suppose I can say, like a much greater author than I am, that this tale grew in the telling. **Warning**: In general most of the events of A Tale of 'Demon' Rights are my own take on the past relationship between Trevor Bruttenholm and Hellboy. However, the Epilogue that follows Part Three is more connected to events from the movie. Don't read it if you haven't seen the film and want to avoid some major PLOT SPOILERS.

**A Tale of 'Demon' Rights: Part Three: Continuing the Crusade **

**Chapter One**

Trevor Broom awoke suddenly and realized that he was still seated in the hangar that the men on the base converted into a 'movie theater' for Hellboy's fifth birthday. The demon Broom loved as if he were his own son was fast asleep sprawled across his lap and Broom was reluctant to wake him. He looked at his watch and noted that it was almost 11:00pm.

Somehow, despite the fact that Hellboy was very large for a five-year-old child, Broom managed to lift him up over his shoulder and carried him, still sleeping, out of the 'theater'. He trudged across the military base toward his bungalow wishing the two guards posted near there a good night as he walked past.

"Good night, Professor," said one of the guards. He then turned to the other guard, "Good God, I can't figure out how he manages to do that. He's not a big man and the kid must weigh a ton. That kid's right hand alone seems almost as big as the rest of him put together."

This other guard, who was still watching Broom slowly making his way toward the bungalow said, "I think Professor Broom is stronger than he looks. By the way, have you heard that a senator arrived today with a decree that Hellboy is to be removed from his custody?"

"Take the kid away from him?" said the first guard, "You have got to be kidding. I've never seen anyone care for anything as much as he cares for that kid. Why ever would they want to do that?"

"I think that it might have to do with those tests that Professor Broom won't allow to be performed anymore," said the second guard. "There's some, I think, that would rather see the kid dissected into bitty pieces than to allow him to grow up. You see how big he already is at five. Can you imagine how huge he'll be when he's full-grown? I think there's a lot of people frightened of what he'll turn out to be. But not Professor Broom. He seems convinced that the kid's going to turn out to be something really special."

Trevor Broom finally arrived at the front door to his bungalow. Just as he was wondering how he was going to open the door, it was opened from the inside by his assistant, Paul Johanssen.

"Good evening, Professor. I was working late tonight and decided to wait up for you. I hope your son enjoyed his birthday party."

"Yes, he certainly did, thank you," Broom replied. He continued speaking as he passed through the door, "Paul, since you are still up, do me the favor to wait for me until I put my son to bed. I need to speak with you."

"Certainly, Professor." Paul returned to Broom's still lighted office.

Broom lugged Hellboy, who now seemed heavier by the second, to his bedroom and placed him down gently on the bed. He didn't try to undress him, he just removed his belt and pulled off the boots he wore to accommodate his cloven hooves.

Broom then pulled up an olive-green blanket, stenciled 'US ARMY' in white letters, from the foot of the bed, kissing Hellboy on the forehead right below his horns as he adjusted the blanket. As he was doing this, arms reached up and hugged him tight.

Broom practically had the breath squeezed out of him by the strength that was in Hellboy's right hand. He submitted to the hug, but thought to himself that he was really going to have to stress again that his son do most things only with his left hand. Broom managed to extricate himself from the hug without any broken ribs.

"Father," Hellboy said unexpectedly, "Are they going to take me away from you?"

Broom hadn't realized how much Hellboy had understood about his altercation with the senator he had tossed out of his office earlier that day.

"Son, I promise that I will never, ever allow that to happen. I don't care if I have to spend all of my money. They will never take you away from me."

Broom turned to leave, "Now, go back to sleep. If you want to help me trim the Christmas tree tomorrow you will have to get some sleep."

Broom gently closed the door to Hellboy's room and made his way to his office. Paul Johanssen, a man who had been with him as assistant and secretary since even before his discovery of Hellboy, was still waiting for him.

Paul, like Broom himself, was not a military man. President Roosevelt had brought him into the brand-new Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense because of his knowledge of psychic and mystical practices useful in counteracting attacks from things not of this world. Paul was an orphan who had also been the sole support of an elderly grandmother. This service in Broom's BPRD had been in lieu of military service overseas during the war.

Paul's grandmother had passed away while Trevor Broom had been abroad in 1944. When Broom had arrived back to the United States with Hellboy in tow, Paul had decided to remain in his service. He transferred along with them from military base to military base until they finally settled more permanently in New Mexico toward the end of 1945.

"Thank you for waiting, Paul," Broom said as he entered his office, "I am afraid that what I have to say will not be pleasant. I have never been anything less than pleased with your service to me, but I am afraid..."

"I am sorry to interrupt, Professor" Paul interjected, "But I already have an idea of what you are going to say. The senator who was here this morning was less than discrete. Before he left he had contacted the commander of the base and told him to expect the funds for your support to cease almost immediately."

"This was really the reason why I waited up for you. I want to assure you that I don't need a salary from you. As long as I can come up with enough to keep myself I would rather remain in your service. You and Hellboy are like family to me, the only family I have now."

Broom cleared his throat and then turned and looked out of the office window. It was pitch black outside and the only thing he could see was the reflection of his own worried face. He turned back to his assistant.

"Thank you, Paul. Things are not going to be easy. Remember I am not an American citizen and could be deported. You might not be able to accompany me even if we would want it."

Broom sat down behind his desk. "I really need to think what is the best thing I can do right now." He yawned and dropped his head in his hands, which were still sticky from all of the chocolate he had eaten earlier that day. After a moment he raised his head again.

"Paul, I know it's late, but do me the great favor to get a long-distance connection to Princeton, New Jersey." He reached in one of the drawers of his desk. "Use this phone number to make the call and tell me when the connection has gone through."

Several minutes later Broom was on the line with a famous scientist. 'Uncle Albert', as Hellboy called him, was also a very close friend.

**Chapter Two**

Trevor Broom went to bed a lot later than he had ever intended. The next morning both father and son slept late, so they were a little later than usual getting the tree decorated for Christmas Eve. Regardless of his concerns, Trevor Broom tried as much as possible to celebrate Christmas as usual for Hellboy's sake.

Broom had a small room in his bungalow that he had converted into a chapel. A good friend, Father Edward Kelly, a newly ordained priest, came to celebrate Midnight Mass for anyone who wished to attend this Catholic service. All left, when it was over, except Broom, Hellboy, and Father Ed.

Broom turned to the young priest, "Ed, I've got trouble. They are trying to take Hellboy away from me. They are planning to remove him from my custody at the end of next month. You can be sure I will do everything in my power to prevent this."

Father Ed looked down on Hellboy who was asleep in one of the chairs. "Why are they even considering this?"

"It's these tests," Broom replied, "They want to perform even more, the most awful tests you can imagine. I just cannot allow it."

"Is there anything I can do to help, Trevor?" Father Ed sat in one of the chairs and Broom sat in a chair between the priest and the still sleeping Hellboy.

"Yes, there is" Broom replied, "I want my son to be baptized."

"I understand why you would want this, Trevor" said the priest touching Broom's hand, "But I'm not sure it would be a valid sacrament."

Broom looked at Hellboy. "I know he is not human, Ed, but he is not an animal either. Does my son have a soul? How can we be sure that any being does or does not? Only God knows these things for certain. In all humility, I believe that at the worst the sacrament will merely be meaningless, but at the best, if he indeed has a soul, it will provide him a protection that will be more than I can ever give him."

The priest considered Broom's words. "O.K., I'll just get together the things I will need."

"Thank you, Ed," Broom reached down and woke Hellboy, "It will mean so much to me." He turned to Hellboy as he sat up sleepily.

"Son, Father Ed is going to give you a great gift this Christmas. He is going to baptize you."

Hellboy, whose idea of a great gift was some of his favorite comic books, looked at his father.

He had been taught the basics of the Catholic faith by Broom. But he was still a little confused.

"Father, what's supposed to happen when you are 'baptized' anyway?"

"You will become a part of God's family," Broom replied, "And will have a father in heaven as well as one on earth." He looked up as Father Ed returned. "Trevor, what name do you want to use?" the priest inquired, "I doubt you would want it to be 'Hellboy'." Broom almost laughed, "Regardless of what my original intention had been, I can only blame myself for him getting saddled with that name."

He thought for a moment, "I was named for my paternal grandfather. I can think of no greater way to honor the man who really was the one who raised me than to name my son after him."

He looked at the face Hellboy made and smiled at him, "Don't worry, no one will ever call you that. I know it's not exactly a popular American name."

Father Ed sat all of the things he needed on the altar and turned to Broom. "I've never baptized anyone yet so I don't have all of the ritual memorized. I'll have to use the book. You will have to stand in for both parent and sponsor. In a way you will be becoming your son's godfather."

Broom walked Hellboy up to the small altar. Hellboy could follow a little of what was going on because Broom had taught him some Latin. Father Ed went through the ritual and Broom made all of the responses. After Hellboy had been anointed and sprinkled with holy water, Father Ed had Broom kneel and gave him a special anointing for strength.

Hellboy watched his father who remained kneeling for a long time with his face buried in his hands. He was praying something that Hellboy couldn't quite hear, but he could see that his father was weeping.

Not being sure what he should do, Hellboy walked up to the priest who was packing together the book and other items he had used during the ceremony. "Father Ed, what happened was a good thing, right?"

"Yes, Hellboy" said the priest, "Very good."

Hellboy pondered this. "Then why is Father crying?" he asked after a little while.

The priest sat down on a chair at a little distance from where Broom was kneeling and placed Hellboy in front of him. "Sometimes things happen that are so overwhelming that the only possible response seems to be tears, but these tears are not necessarily ones of sadness or pain."

Hellboy, still somewhat confused, looked over at his father who continued kneeling in prayer.

"Father Ed, am I supposed to feel different now?"

The priest placed his hand on Hellboy's shoulder. "This is part of the essence of faith—believing that something has changed even when we don't feel it."

Just as Father Ed had finished speaking, Broom got up from his knees. It was not clear if he had overheard their conversation. The priest stood up as Broom walked over to him.

"Merry Christmas, Ed. Thank you, everything was beautiful." Broom gave the priest a quick hug. "It's so late I can't let you leave now. Please stay and have Christmas dinner with us. You can sleep in Hellboy's room. He can stay with me tonight."

Broom bent down and hugged Hellboy who returned the embrace using only his left arm as his father had discussed with him earlier that day. He then added his right hand, but very gently, wishing never again to inadvertently cause his father pain.

Hellboy closed his eyes as he hugged his father and contemplated the warm darkness within himself. Maybe he did feel just a little different.

"Merry Christmas, Son. Let's go to bed now. It's going to be a big day tomorrow." Broom switched off the lights and all three of them went to bed.

**Chapter Three**

The second Monday after the first of the year, a phone call came from President Truman. The president was displeased with the whole situation but was unsure whether to trust the recommendations of the congressional committee or to trust Broom, who he hardly knew.

President Truman had inherited the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense from President Roosevelt, but had not met Trevor Broom, its director, more than a handful of times. He had also never met Hellboy and was only familiar with him through conflicting information fed to him by others.

However, the president had recently received a phone call from Albert Einstein, plus petitions from dissenting members of the congressional committee. He decided that it would be better to bring Trevor Broom to Washington to meet with him before he made any decision. Broom begged permission to bring Hellboy to meet him and President Truman agreed.

Hellboy, who had hardly been off of the base since his arrival in 1946, was at first excited to go, especially as they were going to fly. He was upset when he found that he was to be transported in a large crate marked 'LIVE CARGO'.

Hellboy discovered this over breakfast the day before they were to leave. He was eating his usual breakfast of 'pamcakes' and milk, while his father was trying to coax a decent cup of tea from something called Lipton and swallow some awful corn muffin.

Hellboy threw down his fork, "The other kids get to go places all the time. I hardly ever get to go anywhere. Now you tell me I have to get stuck in a box? It's not fair. I hate you."

Broom put down the inedible muffin he had been trying to eat. "Right now no one hates me more than I do myself." He got up and walked out of the small kitchen.

As Broom walked toward his office he heard, from the kitchen, a loud crunching sound followed by the tinkle of broken glass. He returned into the kitchen and found Hellboy still seated at the table. His right hand held the remnants of the glass he had been drinking milk from. One slight squeeze of that huge hand had crushed it sending shards of glass and spatterings of milk everywhere.

Hellboy didn't move as Broom walked in. He just sat staring at his left arm which had several pieces of glass embedded in it. Broom went back out to the bathroom and returned with tweezers, alcohol, gauze, and tape.

Hellboy never said a word while Broom carefully pulled the glass out of his arm and cleansed and bandaged the cuts. Broom knew that by the next day these cuts would be almost completely healed.

After he was finished he said to Hellboy, "Son, I cannot really blame you for being angry with me, but this kind of behavior is something I cannot tolerate. Please, go to your room and I will come to speak with you as soon as I get this mess cleaned up."

Hellboy got up and left the kitchen. Broom heard him walk the opposite direction from his bedroom toward the front door of the bungalow and go out the door. He then heard him walk back in and go to his bedroom as requested. It took Broom about a half hour to clean up the kitchen. Paul, his assistant, had already gone ahead to Washington to arrange things for their arrival and Broom hated to disturb the other men on the base.

So he cleaned the kitchen himself. He managed to climb up onto a chair and use the mop he had been cleaning the floor with to get the milk off of the ceiling. The only real problem he had was in getting down from the chair. He leaned on the table and caught his left hand on a piece of glass that he had missed, giving himself a long, if not deep, gash on his palm.

Broom went to the bathroom and bandaged his hand. He then went to Hellboy's room. The room appeared to be empty. Broom sat on the edge of the bed.

"Son, these travel arrangements were not my idea. I only found out yesterday that the FBI was going to require me to transport you as cargo. Believe me, no one hates doing this more than I do. But if we don't get to Washington things will only get worse for us here."

Hellboy slid out from under the bed. He still said nothing, but sat on the edge of the bed a little ways from Broom as he continued speaking. "We all get angry at times. You must find appropriate ways to express that anger. What you did today was not appropriate. Not only did you injure yourself, but if someone had been nearby when you broke the glass they could have been badly hurt."

Broom glanced at Hellboy. He no longer looked angry, but Broom found it hard to read his expression. Hellboy was obviously struggling with something.

"Son, I understand that sometimes, especially in cases of extreme emotion, you can lose control of your right hand. I worry about this. You are growing very quickly. Soon you will be larger even than children who are much older than you. In just a few years you may even be larger than most of the adults around you."

"I, again, cannot stress enough that you avoid using your right hand unless absolutely necessary. If you do not learn this self-restraint you could really injure someone even without intending it."

Hellboy finally spoke for the first time since the incident. "Why can't I be like the other kids? Father, do you know why I'm so different from them?"

Broom stood up, "Son, come with me. I have something I would like to show you."

They walked out of Hellboy's room and went to Broom's office. Broom pulled a package that was marked 'Top Secret/Classified' out of a locked cabinet.

Broom removed a picture and handed it to Hellboy. "You must never tell anyone that you have seen this." Hellboy had seen this picture before, or at least a copy of it. It was of his father with a group of soldiers.

However, the picture he was now looking at was different in the fact that he himself as an infant was also in the picture. The copy that he had seen framed in Broom's bedroom didn't show this.

"This picture was taken on December 23, 1944" Broom continued, "That was the night I found you on an island off the coast of Scotland. You were just a baby then and the minute I picked you up I knew that I had to take care of you. I am afraid that the only thing I really know about you is that you are not human."

Hellboy's only clear memories were of the military base in New Mexico where they now resided. He looked closer at the picture trying to remember something of that night in 1944. He closed his eyes for a few moments and then opened them again. "Chocolate, someone fed me chocolate. Was that you, Father?"

Broom sat down in the chair behind his desk. "Yes, it was."

Hellboy walked over to him and took Broom's bandaged hand in his left hand. "I never meant for you to get hurt."

"I know you didn't," Broom gave Hellboy's hand a little shake, "Son, we live a sheltered life here. Most people we encounter are familiar with the unusual or unique. However, in the wider world outside there are many who feel threatened by anything different from them. I wish things could be different—could be easier for you."

"I am attempting to do some things that will change this. But it will take time. Remember what we discussed today about your temper and controlling your right hand. Now, go and play with your dog Mac. I have a lot to prepare for the trip tomorrow."

**Chapter Four**

The next morning after breakfast they took off for Washington. Broom made sure that Hellboy had enough room in the crate and had good ventilation. He gave him food and water and a collection of his favorite comics along with pillows, blankets, and a flashlight.

He thought his heart would break when men came aboard, closed the crate, and securely stowed it along with the suitcases in the rear of the aircraft.

The trip was a long one. They flew a circuitous route in order to refuel at several secret military bases before they finally arrived at another secret base in Virginia.

Paul was waiting with a truck when they arrived. Hellboy, who had fallen asleep in the crate curled up with the blankets and pillows, woke up as they landed. Four men carried the crate and suitcases out and placed them in the back of the truck.

Paul inquired how the trip had been. "It was a difficult trip," Broom replied, "Especially for my son. I want to go in the back of the truck and check on him before we leave."

When Broom was finished he got in the front where Paul was already behind the wheel and they drove away.

After about two hours they arrived at the place near Washington where Paul had found housing for them that was very private. Several secret service men were there when they arrived and they carried the crate into one of the bedrooms and then left. It was a government-owned house with two bedrooms, two baths, a living room, and a small kitchen.

Paul and Broom then got Hellboy out of the crate and Broom put him to sleep in one of the bedrooms. Hellboy was exhausted and fell asleep almost immediately. Paul informed Broom that President Truman was coming to their place of residence at 11:00am the next morning to meet with them. Broom was so fatigued from the journey that he went to bed in the room he was sharing with Hellboy without unpacking.

The next morning when Broom woke up he found his suitcases unpacked, his good suit pressed, and he could smell that breakfast was being prepared. Broom put on his bathrobe and went out into the kitchen. He usually didn't eat bacon and eggs, but this morning the smell was enticing. He had eaten very little the day before and was really hungry.

"Good morning, Paul," Broom said as he walked into the kitchen, "You should have called me rather than preparing all this yourself."

"You were so tired that I didn't want to wake you until it was necessary," Paul said as he set down another stack of pancakes in front of Hellboy who had woken earlier and was already eating.

"Hellboy helped me a lot by bathing and dressing himself when he got up." Paul then set the rest of the food on the table. Broom sat down and started in on the bacon, eggs, and toast.

Paul brought a pot of coffee over to the table and sat down to eat with them. He apologized to Broom for forgetting to get him tea, but this morning Broom was perfectly willing to drink the coffee. It smelled wonderful. Sometimes good coffee could be better than mediocre tea.

Since Broom seldom served coffee, Hellboy never had a chance to see it much. He was enticed by the aroma and Broom let him have a small cup of it. Hellboy found that he loved it and preferred it black. From that day on he insisted that coffee be served at breakfast.

While he was eating Broom found out from Paul that he had around two hours before his meeting with the president. This gave him plenty of time to get ready and to make sure that Hellboy looked his best.

Broom wanted to be as sure as possible that he wasn't too nervous about this meeting. He assumed that an appearance of calm determination would get him further with President Truman than appearing overly anxious. So he took a long, leisurely bath in very hot water. He always found this relaxing.

President Truman arrived a little early for the appointment. Broom and Hellboy were waiting for him in the living room. It was hard for the president not to notice Hellboy right away, but he decided that the best thing was to speak with Broom first. So Broom sat Hellboy in a chair and he and the president sat in armchairs on the other side of the room.

Trevor Broom and President Truman discussed all of the implications of the situation. Broom explained exactly how he felt about the drastic tests that some on the congressional committee wished to see performed on Hellboy.

"Few on the committee," Broom said in conclusion, "Have had a chance to meet with him or have taken the opportunity to do so when it was offered them. Some wouldn't change their minds even if I could show that he was an angel from heaven. He has proven an open and affectionate child to those of us who know him well. There are those on the committee who have accused me of not dealing with him with proper scientific objectivity. I will admit to this accusation. I consider him as if he were my own son, not a rat in a maze."

While he had been speaking he could see the president glancing over every so often at the topic of their conversation. Hellboy was sitting quietly in his chair reading the comic book that he had been reading before the president arrived.

"What I would like at this point," said the president, "is to speak with Hellboy himself."

Broom stood up. "Let me bring his chair over so he can sit with us." Hellboy stopped him.

"No, Father, let me do it. I wouldn't want you to hurt your hand again."

President Truman, who had not noticed the small bandage on Broom's left hand before this, was affected by the apparent concern that Hellboy showed for the man he called 'Father'.

Broom had been too busy recently to notice certain changes in Hellboy. As he watched Hellboy carrying the chair, he realized that his son was significantly larger than he had been even just a few weeks earlier. Broom doubted that he could now pick Hellboy up and carry him as he had done on the evening of his fifth birthday.

Hellboy placed his chair where Broom indicated. As he went to sit down he picked up from the seat of the chair the comic book he had been reading.

"So, Hellboy," asked the president, "What are you reading there?"

Hellboy held the book up, "It's Superman—one of my favorites. Father gave it to me for Christmas."

President Truman smiled at him, "Did you get anything else for Christmas?"

Hellboy smiled back at the president, a little more relaxed than he had been.

"Father gave me a lot of my favorite comics and a book about cowboys. I like cowboys, especially Gene Autry. The men that work with Father gave me cowboy boots. The ones I had didn't fit anymore."

"Did you get your father anything for Christmas?" asked the president, thinking that Hellboy seemed just like a lot of boys his age despite his odd appearance.

"The men helped me to get Father one of those neat Zippo lighters they all use," Hellboy replied, "It's the one with the Indian head on it. He doesn't smoke, but I figured he could use it to light candles or something." Broom reached into one of the pockets of his vest pulling out the lighter and showing it to the president.

President Truman looked at the two of them. What he was seeing today was not at all the picture that the majority on the congressional committee was trying to paint of Hellboy and his relationship with Trevor Broom. It was no wonder that people like Lee, the FBI liaison, and Albert Einstein wanted him to meet with Trevor Broom before making any decisions about Hellboy's custody.

Hellboy looked down at the comic book he was holding and then looked back up, bold enough to blurt out, "I want to go home. It's too cold here. New Mexico is lots warmer than this. I miss my dog, too."

"The FBI would probably let you go back to New Mexico," said the president, "but I doubt they would let Professor Broom accompany you. Would you want to go without him?"

Hellboy shook his head, "The other people there treat me O.K., but not like him. My right hand," Hellboy raised the huge hand slightly and flexed its four stone appendages, "Sometimes, when I get really mad, I can't control it and I break things without meaning to. Father tries to teach me how to use my right hand. Everyone else just gets scared of me when things happen."

Hellboy put his right hand back in his lap and looked down at it. "I told him I hated him," he said softly, "I didn't mean it."

He looked back up at the president. "He cut his hand when I broke a glass because I was mad at him. But he never yells at me because of things like that. He just talks to me about how I can be better. No one else does that. Father is the only one who really doesn't care that I'm so different. Please, let me stay with him."

Broom, who was intensely moved by this little speech of Hellboy's, got up from his seat and started to pace. "This is so frustrating. We wouldn't be having this conversation if he were human." He paused, "I apologize, Mr. President," he said after a deep breath, "It is difficult for me to remain calm." He sat back down.

"Please, Trevor," said the president, "There is nothing to apologize for. I would be upset too if I found myself in this kind of situation. However, I am in a bit of a bind here. I wish President Roosevelt had put the responsibility for your Bureau under the executive branch instead of under the FBI. When you deal with the FBI you have to deal with J. Edgar Hoover. I may still be president, but unless I am able to convince the FBI to change their mind about this, or in some way to change the status of your Bureau, your choices are limited."

"What are the choices I have?" Broom asked quietly.

President Truman leaned forward in his chair, "If you wish to remain director of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, keeping your full salary and status, you must comply with the congressional committee's dictates about the testing of Hellboy. Custody of him must be turned over to whomever they designate and they can deal with him as they see fit."

Broom started to speak, but the president held up his hand. "Let me finish. I will allow you to keep custody of Hellboy. Frankly, I am already leaning toward making you his permanent guardian. However, you must resign your position as director of the Bureau. Your salary will be cut off and all Bureau funding will be dispersed to the FBI until they assign a new director."

"If you choose this option," the president continued, "The dictates of the congressional committee will be considered null and void. You will have sole responsibility for all decisions dealing with Hellboy. For the time being I will allow you to reside in your present residence rent-free. Hellboy must still be hidden from the general public. He must make his primary residence here in the United States and may not be taken abroad without prior notification."

Broom sighed, "Can you doubt, Mr. President, which choice I will make? Thank God, I liquidated most of my assets before leaving England and can come up with enough money for us to live on for a long while. Paul Johanssen, my assistant, has chosen to remain in my service if something like this were to happen. He will, of course, be giving his notice to the Bureau."

Broom stood up, walked to a window, and looked out at the sunny, but cold day for a few moments. He then turned to face President Truman.

"I was so concerned that the government was going to forcibly separate me from Hellboy by deporting me to England and granting custody to the FBI by default. It certainly eases my mind that you will not be taking that route."

"However, I would like to make it clear that I am working on a more permanent solution to the issue of Hellboy's status as a sentient being. Through the assistance of people like Dr. Einstein, I have been in contact with the International Court of Justice of the United Nations. They have convened a secret panel and are already considering issues of his legal status."

Broom walked back toward his chair. "I hope my assistant will be allowed to return briefly to New Mexico to collect the rest of my belongings. I will, of course, leave all documentation about Hellboy with the Bureau files there, but would like to keep my own copies of such. Also, most of the books and relics collected there are my own personal property. I intend to remove these; it is quite an extensive collection. If the new director of the Bureau ever finds that he needs any of them he can spend his own money developing his own collection."

The president agreed to this and then stood up, indicating that the meeting was now over.

Broom leaned forward, "A word in your ear, Mr. President. There are strange rumblings coming out of South America, especially Argentina. Do not think that the Nazi menace has been totally defeated. In fact, you may find that the real war has yet to begin. What I defeated in 1944 may only be the prologue to a tale that may not end in either of our lifetimes. However, these Bureau matters are no longer my affair."

President Truman looked at Trevor Broom closely, "Is this something to be immediately concerned about?"

Broom led the president to the door.

"Let's say this, Mr. President; the FBI may have picked the wrong time to find out that I have been accomplishing a lot more than just being a father to Hellboy."

**Chapter Five**

During the year 1950, Broom, Hellboy, and Broom's assistant, Paul Johanssen, lived in the small house that President Truman let them use. Finances were tight, but manageable. Broom and Paul continued their researches into worldwide reports of paranormal activity, concentrating especially on odd occurrences coming out of South America. Broom managed, over Paul's objections, to pay him a stipend for his services.

Together they worked on raising and training Hellboy, who if he looked upon Trevor Broom as his father, came more and more to look upon Paul as a kind of 'uncle'. Sometimes Hellboy was lonely, especially for the school he had started to attend in June at the secret base where they had resided in New Mexico.

Hellboy, previous to that June, seldom had occurrence to interact with other children. To have had that opportunity cut off so suddenly was difficult for him. New Mexico had been the only home he had ever really known and he had been generally happy there. But giving this up was the only way he could stay with the man who loved him as a father.

There were other hazards to remaining in New Mexico that were not completely clear to Hellboy. He recalled vividly the painful and invasive testing that he had gone through before his father put an end to it. This previous testing may have been uncomfortable, but it had not been life threatening. Hellboy was mostly unaware of the much more dangerous testing that the congressional committee wished to subject him to.

Broom himself was certain that if this more dangerous testing were to be conducted, Hellboy would eventually be 'sacrificed', as researchers call it, and his remains dissected. Taking Hellboy away from New Mexico, no matter how happy he had been there, was infinitely preferable to his death in the name of 'objective scientific research'.

It was in this year that they resided just outside of Washington that Hellboy entered into his biggest and final growth spurt. Within the first two months of the year he had outgrown much of his clothing. Hellboy's appetite also grew, in size if not in the scope of foods he liked to eat, and the only way to keep him satisfied was with at least six meals a day.

Consequently, Broom's biggest outlay of his savings was on food and clothing for Hellboy. The food part of this was manageable. Broom would just buy enough food every week for a family of thirty and hope that would be sufficient to keep his son satisfied. It was the clothing that was driving him into the poorhouse. Broom swore that he would buy his son a new shirt and he couldn't even get it home from the store before Hellboy was too big for it.

In order to save money Broom took to purchasing clothing that was at least five times too large and then taking it in to fit. He would then let it out as Hellboy grew. Sewing was not one of Broom's talents. Consequently, Hellboy's clothing would often appear as if it was made by Dr. Frankenstein. This didn't bother Hellboy at all; as long as what he wore was comfortable he didn't care what it looked like.

It was also at this point that Hellboy started wearing that tan-colored leather trench coat that became part of his signature look over later years. He wore it almost constantly. For one thing, it covered over his odd looking clothing, for the other, after moving away from New Mexico, Hellboy often felt cold. The coat had originally been designed with a large bottom hem so it was easy to let down as Hellboy grew taller. The basic tent-like shape and the fact that Hellboy never buttoned it meant that he was able to wear the same coat for years.

Shoes were actually less of a problem. Broom had already become accustomed to adjusting adult-sized military boots to fit over Hellboy's cloven hooves. These hooves, for some odd reason, were the part of Hellboy that grew large first. Their growth actually slowed down as the rest of him started developing.

Unfortunately, Hellboy did rather quickly outgrow the cowboy boots he had received on his last Christmas in New Mexico and Broom just couldn't afford to replace them.

Before this time Hellboy had been almost completely bald. But he finally started growing hair, mostly on the back and sides of his head, which when it became long enough he pulled back into a kind of sumo knot. When he was somewhat older he also grew a goatee beard and sideburns, but always remained bald on the top of his head.

Broom and Paul had often worked with Hellboy in teaching him fine motor control, especially in the control of his right hand; and strength training to build his muscles. But as he began to grow so quickly, he was also developing a need for training in wrestling, martial arts, and self-defense techniques. Broom realized that they were both small-framed men and the needs of Hellboy's training were starting to exceed their abilities to teach him safely.

Lee, the FBI liaison, had kept in touch with Broom after his dismissal as director of the BPRD. This was partly because of his affection for Broom and Hellboy and partly at the behest of President Truman. Lee often acted as an intermediary between the president and Trevor Broom, limiting the necessity for direct contact. With his help, Broom obtained the services of two secret service agents who during the war had been specialists in hand-to-hand combat training and other personal combat techniques.

They were to work with Hellboy in developing the techniques he would someday have to use if he were ever to join in his father's work. Even though Trevor Broom was no longer the director of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, he still had a deep-seated feeling of responsibility to protect the world. It was always his plan to mentor Hellboy and help him develop his own talents as a paranormal investigator.

Even though Broom usually dealt with his otherworldly enemies using intelligent research and a few well-chosen relics, he recognized that Hellboy's greatest asset would be his size and strength. Hellboy would also come to wield a gun, which was very different from his pacifist father who abhorred all types of violence and weapons.

However, Trevor Broom was not naïve. Even though he detested violence for the sake of violence, he realized that Hellboy's essential temperament was very different from his own and would beget a completely different style of dealing with their foes. Therefore, Broom was not averse to Hellboy's training in most of the martial and military arts, including shooting.

Hellboy's primary problem in any kind of physical training was that, in more ways than one, his dominant hand was his right hand. In and of itself, that hand was one of Hellboy's major weapons; it had the size and strength of a sledgehammer, it felt no pain, and could not be damaged by any outside force.

However, its size in proportion to the rest of Hellboy's body meant that, in general, it was useless for any tasks that required delicacy of control—such as aiming and firing a gun. The problem that kept rearing its head, was that Hellboy was essentially a right-handed boy whose left hand had to be trained to do what he would, in the best of all possible worlds, have done with his right.

This virtually guaranteed that Hellboy would basically remain a poor shot, even though he came to do a lot of his fighting with a gun. This was one reason why the handgun he usually carried was the size of a small cannon. Hellboy always figured that shooting very large bullets would make up for deficit of aim. Also, if he missed, he could always use the gun as a kind of blunt weapon to beat his adversaries into submission.

In general, as a paranormal investigator and monster hunter, Hellboy would eventually become brawn to his father's brains. Their differences, combined with their individual strengths, almost perfectly complemented each other. Even though Hellboy had a tendency to fight first and think later—he was still his father's son; when he did need to think the education given him by his father did him good stead. Father and son would eventually become quite formidable as a team.

It was not originally Broom's intention to start training Hellboy at such an early age. But Hellboy would end up approaching the size of many adults before he turned six years old. Broom realized that this training would help Hellboy burn off excess energy and also help him hone skills that would become important later.

Of course, Broom thought that later would mean many years later. He had no idea that Hellboy's talents and newly developed skills would be needed sooner than he had ever expected.

After all, no matter how large Hellboy had become, he was still only five years old.

**Chapter Six**

With Trevor Broom and Hellboy out of the picture, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense became an organization in name only. The people that ran and staffed it were just typical FBI agents who had little knowledge of what they were about. The agent who at the time was the head of FBI special operations became the director of this puppet organization within the FBI. Everything went along just fine as long as what they were dealing with could be tracked in the usual ways and killed in the usual manner.

However, by September of 1950 what was going on in Argentina had escalated to a point that left this ill-equipped organization floundering. Agents sent to Argentina starting disappearing, especially in the mountains and hills of Córdoba. The epicenter of the phenomenon seemed to be the German enclave of La Falda, especially concentrating around a resort called the Eden Hotel.

The few agents who did manage to get out of Argentina and return to the United States reported encountering Nazi soldiers who appeared to be totally invincible to weapons. Especially strange was the fact that if they were shot they did not bleed; they just dribbled a little sand out of their wounds and seemed little the worse for losing this weird 'blood'.

Agents who got lost in the mountains, at least according to the handful who managed to escape, were literally be-deviled by odd creatures of the night that appeared to be enamored of eating human flesh. There were also sightings of an Adolf Hitler who was very much alive.

Things became desperate in October of 1950. Trevor Broom had heard of a lot of this through his continuing association with Lee, who was still connected with what was left of the BPRD. However, his role as liaison was much reduced since the connection between the FBI and its puppet organization was so close as to seldom necessitate someone in his role.

Eventually Broom did receive a frantic phone call from the new director of the Bureau. Broom made his position clear in no uncertain terms. "I have my own concerns to deal with right now. The responsibility of the fate of Bureau is no longer in my hands."

Trevor Broom, in his younger years, had sworn on his fiancée's grave to spend his life protecting others. But at this point in time, Broom felt that his primary responsibility to this past vow was in his continuing struggle to protect Hellboy against those who would attempt to have him destroyed or limit his rights in other unreasonable ways.

At the time of the phone call from the new director, Broom and Hellboy were making plans to leave for Europe. The secret panel within the International Court of Justice, which was considering the case of Hellboy's status, had finally asked Broom to bring Hellboy to meet them.

Broom begged permission from President Truman to take Hellboy from the United States to The Hague, Netherlands where the court convened. He also forked out money to purchase Hellboy a suit of clothes to wear that would be less homemade looking than his usual garb and hoped that he wouldn't outgrow it before returning to the United States.

While they were there Broom made an impassioned plea for the court to accord a status to Hellboy that would put him legally on an equal footing with any human.

Hellboy then addressed the court panel himself and some attendant there were impressed both with his manner of speaking and the evidence of a strong bond of affection between him and the man he considered his father.

The panel then entered into a debate, assisted by an interpreter for those whose knowledge of English was not sufficient for communication with Broom and Hellboy.

Unfortunately, as Trevor Broom had earlier predicted, things were not going to be easy for Hellboy. Not everyone on the panel could get beyond his superficially hellish appearance. There were others who though sympathetic toward his plight either forgot, or were unaware, that he was not yet six years old—despite his recently acquired adult size. The members of the panel, both for and against Hellboy, started to barrage him with questions about his origins.

At one point he finally lost his temper and shouted, "Jesus! If I did know who my 'real' parents are, or where I came from before I showed up in Scotland, I would've told somebody a long time ago. It would've saved my father a lot of trouble." Being confronted by what looked to be a furiously angry demon gesticulating at them disconcerted many on the panel. What Trevor Broom noticed was that Hellboy gesticulated with his left hand and had kept his troublesome right hand firmly unmoving at his side.

After this minor explosion, Hellboy collapsed back down in his seat trying not to cry. He hated when he lost his temper like that; he hated being on the brink of tears. At first there was a shocked silence, then several members of the panel started talking all at once. Hellboy got back up from his seat. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't yell like that. I just don't know any of these things." He turned toward Broom. "Sorry, Father." Hellboy sat back down.

This all happened so fast that Broom hardly had time to react before a less-than-sympathetic member of the panel stood up to address the other members.

"I do not see that this is getting us anywhere. I especially do not see the purpose of this court even considering giving any kind of status to an alien creature regardless of what its origins are. It is his affair, not ours, if Professor Broom wishes to anthropomorphize this creature and teach it to mimic human behavior. Our only consideration here in this court is the application and development of international law in support of human rights. By this very definition these rights do not adhere to this creature sitting before us." He sat back down.

Trevor Broom again stood up to address the panel.

"It was never my intention to teach my son to 'mimic' human behavior. Like all children he learned by imitation and example. The fact that he speaks English, loves Baby Ruth candy bars, cowboys, and Gene Autry films; and even occasionally sneaks a cigar when he thinks I do not know about it, are completely connected to how and where he was raised. In this he is no different from any one of your sons or daughters."

He walked over to where Hellboy was seated and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I would hope that none of you have spent sleepless nights worrying that your child would be taken from you and subjected to life-threatening experiments; I have spent those sleepless nights. Laboratory animals have more protection in our resident country than does this sentient being I love as a son. There are so many things that I could wish for him; the most important is that he not live in fear of being treated as even less than these animals. In my opinion, if we take fellow sentient beings and classify them as having no enforceable rights we are perpetrating the kind of behavior that I so detested in the Nazis."

Another member of the panel jumped up. "How dare you compare us to Nazis or put this horned pet of yours on an equal footing with our own children?"

Broom sighed, "An equal footing with your own children is exactly what I am seeking for my son. The fact that he has horns is not germane to this issue. I apologize to the court, however; it was never my intention to compare the members of this court to the Nazis."

"Professor Broom," another panel member spoke up, "In the past we have never had occasion to consider the rights of non-human sentient beings. Now you are bringing exactly this case before us. I agree with your basic premise; justice demands that all sentient beings be considered to have the same rights that adhere to human beings."

This particular panel member was from England and was able to address Hellboy directly without the need for an interpreter. "Hellboy, I would like know how you feel about all of this. What do you want for yourself?"

Hellboy stood and walked up to the panel member who had just addressed him. He held his left hand out to him, which the panel member grasped in his own.

"I like you," Hellboy said, "You remind me of my father. He's the only one who ever asks me questions like that. You want to know what I want? I want to be just like everybody else. My father tells me I'm unique. I don't want to be unique. I want to be able to go to a playground and play with the other kids without them being scared of me. I want to look in a mirror and see a regular five-year-old kid; not a five-year-old kid who's taller than his father and has horns. But since that's not going to happen, I'll tell you what I really want: I want people to stop bugging my father. I really don't care much what they do to me as long as they leave him alone."

The man who he was speaking with looked closely at Hellboy, who was almost six feet tall.

"Are you really only five years old?" he asked in amazement, "You're so tall for that age."

"Actually, I'm almost six years old now," Hellboy replied. "I used to be kind of normal-sized for a kid, but right after my fifth birthday I just started growing. I don't like growing this fast," Hellboy raised his bothersome stone-like right hand slightly, "It causes for a lot of problems."

Hellboy spoke to this sympathetic member as if they were involved in a private conversation instead of being in a room full of other people. For some strange reason Hellboy expressed things to this man that he had never been able to share with anyone, not even Trevor Broom. All of the people in the room listened in an amazed silence.

Hellboy continued, "Until I was around five years old, I thought I was just like the other kids I knew except I looked different. Then a man showed up on my fifth birthday and nothing's been the same since then. My father lost his job and we had to move, all because he wouldn't let that guy take me away. I wanted to stay with Father, but maybe he would have been better off with me gone. I've been nothing but trouble for Father since he found me on that island in Scotland. He should have left me there. Things would have been better for him without me."

Even the members who had been unsympathetic to Hellboy earlier were moved by this heart-felt confession of a child who realizes that he is a misfit in the only world he really knows.

The one person who was the most agitated by this was Trevor Broom himself. He jumped up from his seat. "Hellboy," he shouted, "Stop that! Stop it right this instant!"

Hellboy swung around to stare at his father. Trevor Broom never shouted at him and he almost never called him 'Hellboy'.

"How dare you?" Broom continued, "How dare you even think that I would be better off without you? You don't know what my life was like before you came into it. It was empty and I was alone, always alone." Broom sat back down and tried to regain his composure.

After a few deep breaths he spoke again. "I apologize to the court for my unseemly outburst. I have to admit that it infuriates me to no end that he feels compelled, by circumstances totally beyond his control, to think that I would be better off without him."

He stood again and addressed the panel. "I have never had an easy life. I was not an orphan, but in some ways I may as well have been. I ended up being raised by my paternal grandfather, who unfortunately died well before I was ready to let him go. I then became engaged to a wonderful girl and thought my life was finally perfect. Because her family was from a higher class than my own, her parents objected to the engagement, and we had to endure a separation. My studies took me abroad and she became ill and died before I could return to England to be with her."

"After that, all I had was my faith and my work. Even though I loved my work and my faith was very important to me, it was never enough to fill the emptiness in my life. I was totally alone until that one night in 1944 when I held a baby boy in my arms; this same boy you see before you now. Suddenly my arms and my heart were full and I knew that my life would never be empty again; I knew that I would never be alone again."

While Broom had been completing this impassioned speech he walked over to where Hellboy was standing as if rooted in place. He was looking at his father, who was now at least an inch shorter than he was, as if he had never seen him before.

"Son," Broom said as he embraced him closely, "I cannot abide anything that threatens you, not even your own opinion of yourself. And even though I know that you never meant to hurt me, it does hurt me to no end that you could think I ever would be better off without you. Let's leave now. We have both bared our very souls before this panel. If that is not enough for them to make a positive decision on your behalf I do not know what more we can do."

This was eventually to be one of Trevor Bruttenholm's greatest triumphs. The panel after months of further debate made a unanimous recommendation to the United Nations on behalf of Hellboy. The United Nations finally issued a decree in January of 1952 declaring Hellboy of honorary human status and granting all rights to him that would pertain to this status.

**Chapter Seven**

After this heart-rending session with the International Court of Justice panel, Trevor Broom and Hellboy had returned to the place where they were staying in the Netherlands to find a telegram waiting for them.

Trevor Broom was being called back to the United States to again take up the reins of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. President Truman had finally become fed up with the current state of affairs in the Bureau. It had come to the point where he had either to close it down completely or tolerate what seemed to be a wholesale slaughter of FBI agents in Argentina.

The president was unwilling to accept either of these choices. He forced upon the FBI a change in the status of the Bureau. Rather than being an organization directly under the control of the FBI, President Truman turned it into a semi-autonomous, if secret, Bureau within the Dept. of Justice, the parent organization of the FBI. However, close ties would still connect it to the FBI in the providing of funding, support, and a supply of specially trained agents.

It was now the beginning of December of 1950. Trevor Broom and Hellboy were to return to Washington just long enough to wind up their affairs there. Broom was to be given almost compete authority to run the organization in any way he saw fit. He would be given the funding to be able to use his extensive connections and reputation within the world of paranormal research and psychic phenomenon to bring in the best experts that he could find.

A brand new headquarters was being established in a secret location in Boston, Massachusetts. The facilities were to be well staffed, with an extensive infrastructure of supportive services. Gone were the days when the Bureau was a bungalow in New Mexico staffed by Broom, his assistant, and a handful of soldiers.

Trevor Broom, Hellboy, and Paul, who still continued as Broom's assistant, moved into these new facilities in January of 1951. 'Lee' was to continue as the liaison to the FBI during the Bureau's decade long tenure in Boston and continued with the organization when it shifted to much more extensive headquarters in Newark, New Jersey in the early 1960s.

There was one absolute condition that had to be fulfilled before Trevor Broom allowed himself to again take over the reins of the BPRD. He refused to return to any connection with the FBI until he was granted sole permanent custody of Hellboy. He was especially insistent on this because, at this point in time, the United Nations had yet to make any declaration on Hellboy's status. He also insisted that the federal government agree to continue to support Hellboy after he was gone. President Truman agreed to all of this and, right after the beginning of the year in 1951, Trevor Broom was officially and permanently designated as Hellboy's adoptive father.

Trevor Broom, as director of the BPRD, was ensconced, in both Boston and Newark, in facilities that made him look to most eyes like a wealthy man. He was able to conduct his research with the best available technology, further expand his already extensive library, and live in comfort.

Most also thought that he made a large personal salary. He did not. As far as Trevor Broom was concerned he had been required, in January of 1950, to make a choice between his salary and his son. He had chosen his son and, upon return as director of the BPRD in 1951, refused ever again to accept a personal salary. Broom wanted nothing more from the federal government than a place to live with Hellboy, food to put on the table, and funding to run his Bureau.

Upon his death many decades later, Trevor Broom was found, in terms of his own personal wealth, to be virtually a pauper. Yet, he felt that as long as he had his faith, his life's work and, especially, his son his life was a completely full and rich one.

**Chapter Eight**

Broom attempted to get this new version of his Bureau up and running as quickly as possible. What was going on in Argentina was his most immediate concern. He made several trips to South America. Even though he seldom went off on field investigations any more, his presence there was instrumental in the establishing of secret bases for his agents to use in foraging into Argentina to research and, if possible, curtail and control what they found going on there.

Broom and Hellboy hated being separated from each other when Broom went away on these trips. In early November of 1954, when Hellboy was almost ten years old, Broom decided to allow Hellboy, supervised by other senior agents, to accompany him to Argentina. The training that Hellboy had been receiving since age five and his sheer size and strength made him a valuable asset, even though he was still short of his eventual full size.

It was on this trip that Hellboy first evinced the bravery, loyalty, and tenacity that would mark his career as a monster hunter and eventually caused him to be designated 'The World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator'.

Hellboy would often object when people conferred this title on him. "If you want to talk about a 'great paranormal investigator', that's my father, not me. I just beat the crap out of whatever he points me at." However, there were those who could see the justice of this title being conferred on both father and son.

The one thing that most impressed others about Hellboy was his courage in the face of impossible odds. He may have been invulnerable to most physical assaults, but he was not indestructible.

There were many times, starting right with this year of 1954, when he would insist on going alone against creatures who were as strong or even stronger than himself in order to protect the lives of the human agents he worked with.

It was also on this trip that Hellboy first starting wearing the rosary that in later years could always be seen hanging from his belt. This rosary had been a gift from his father when Richard James Cushing, archbishop of Boston and a personal friend, had come to the BPRD headquarters in 1953 and conferred first Holy Communion and Confirmation on Hellboy. He was the only prelate high in the Catholic hierarchy that had ever known that Broom had Hellboy baptized when he was five years old.

One good thing that had developed out of allowing Hellboy to work as a supervised field agent at this age was that it alleviated the loneliness he often felt. He became very attached to the other field agents he worked with, often jeopardizing his own life for theirs and grieving immensely for the agents who were lost in the field.

These men also developed a strong affection for Hellboy, often dubbing him with affectionate nicknames: 'Red', 'Big Red, and 'H.B.' being favorites. In a way these men became surrogates for the companionship that he had lost in the move away from New Mexico.

Yet, there was an unfortunate development from all of this as well. In the camaraderie that developed between Hellboy and these much older men, their influence on him was not always a good one. Some of these agents, especially the ones stemming from the FBI, could be intelligent, sophisticated men of some learning, but Hellboy did not find these men half so interesting as the men who stemmed from military backgrounds. These men reminded him of the soldiers who had befriended him as a child in New Mexico.

Spending a little too much time in the field with these men, instead of in the well-mannered, but less interesting company of his father, began to cause a change in Hellboy that Trevor Broom did not like to see. It wasn't so much the smoking, drinking, and swearing that his son was starting to indulge in that bothered Broom. That was easy enough to monitor and control.

It was more the general coarsening of Hellboy's character that bothered him. Hellboy's attitude became a lot more abrasive and cynical; even his way of speaking became more inarticulate as he started to imitate the vocal behavior of some of these less educated men.

It was also at this time that Hellboy decided to get rid of the horns he so detested having. One day Hellboy had stayed in his room for a long time. He didn't come to breakfast or lunch. Even though he almost never got sick, Broom began to be concerned that something was wrong.

Twice he knocked on Hellboy's door and received no answer each time. But when he tried the door it was locked. So he knocked harder and called out, finally receiving a muffled answer. "Go away, I have a headache."

"Are you sick, Son? Do you need anything?" Broom called through the door. Hellboy answered, "No. No, I don't need anything. I just have a headache. Go away."

Even though he was still concerned, Broom went away. Hellboy never came for supper either, but Broom decided to let the whole thing go after he found that Hellboy's door was still locked. He figured that sooner or later he would find out what was really wrong. So he went to bed.

Hellboy came to him in the middle of the night. "Father, my head, it hurts. I can't get it to stop hurting." Broom woke from a sound sleep to find Hellboy kneeling by his bed holding his head in his hands. Looking at Hellboy in the semi-darkness, Broom knew immediately that there was something different about him. "Son? Son, what happened to your horns?"

Hellboy groaned, "I didn't want them anymore. I wanted to look more like everyone else. So I broke them off and tried to use a big file to sand them down. But I didn't know it was going to hurt so much."

Broom sighed, "Son, we better go to the Medical Wing and have you checked out. I hope that you haven't done yourself some real damage. You are lucky, that unlike some animals, you do not seem to have major blood vessels in your horns. If you had you could have bled to death."

Later in the Medical Wing, after Hellboy had been given some kind of pain reliever and the pain was receding, he asked his father if he didn't think he looked a lot better without the horns.

"Son," said Broom, "I can't say that I am particularly pleased that you injured yourself for the sake of your appearance. Yet, I understand that this issue has been a particularly troublesome one for you. Dr. Thomson assures me that you have done no permanent damage to yourself and this sensitivity will fade after a time. He does recommend waiting a few days if you wish to try to file your horns down further. As for the way you look: I did not love you because you had horns; I loved you regardless of that fact, and will love you just as much now. If you prefer to be without them, so be it."

Trevor Broom wasn't the only person in the BPRD to notice a change in Hellboy's behavior. Things really came to a head in the June before Hellboy's twelfth birthday in 1956. Hellboy was generally careful not to be directly disrespectful to Broom, but after a while his disrespectful attitude toward his father become noticeable to almost everyone. When the issue of Father's Day came up he said some things about his father that people were very careful not to repeat where Broom could hear them.

Paul Johanssen was the only person that Hellboy had been close to who at the time was generally unaware of this issue. He had a bad heart attack in the previous year and had to resign his duties with the BPRD. Hellboy often missed Paul; he was a good influence that was missing in Hellboy's life at that time. Even though Paul occasionally came to visit, he now had a part-time job as manager of a religious goods store that kept him busy. Broom often visited this store, but never complained about Hellboy when there.

One day Hellboy was in his quarters watching a new television that his father had picked up for him recently. He was smoking a cigar and watching some episodes being broadcast of the old cartoon Felix the Cat. There was a knock on his door and thinking it was his father he tried to get rid of the cigar before he walked in. However, it wasn't Broom, it was Lee, the FBI liaison.

"Hellboy," said Lee, "Don't bother trying to get rid of that cigar. You can smell it a mile away, anyway."

Hellboy grinned at Lee and continued to smoke the cigar. "Lee, it's been a long time since you've been around. How're you doing, anyway? It's good to see you."

Lee sat down on the rumpled couch next to Hellboy. "I wish I could say the same thing about you, Hellboy. You're right; it has been a long time. I have to say that I was looking forward to seeing you again. But now that I'm here, I can't say that I like what I'm seeing. Or what I'm hearing about you. And I'm not talking about the smoking and drinking, either."

Hellboy took another puff on his cigar and leaned back. "It's this Father's Day crap again isn't it? Well, I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't want to listen to another lecture about how I should be buying poor Father some stupid gift. So why don't you just buzz off?"

"Don't worry, Hellboy," said Lee, "I'm not planning on giving you some long lecture. I think it would be a waste of breath, anyway. I think its time that you started thinking some things out for yourself for a change. But before I 'buzz off', so to speak, let me put a bee in your bonnet and give you something to think about. Remember, I was there on your fifth birthday. I would hope that you remember that day in New Mexico as vividly as I do. I would hope that you remember what happened that day and what happened afterwards."

Lee got up to leave, "You think about it for a real good long time, Hellboy. See if you don't think that 'poor Father' deserves some kind of gift from you for all the trouble he went through on your behalf. And you see if you can't come up with a gift that he would like, instead of buying him Zippo lighters and things like that just because it's what you like. You've been grumbling about him not being your 'real father'. Well, how much more of a 'real father' do you want than someone who practically gave up his entire life and fortune for your sake?"

"Look, Hellboy, I'm going to be around for a few days. When you're done thinking about everything, come to me and I'll take you anywhere you want to go to pick out a gift. I'll even help you buy it if you're short of money."

Hellboy did think about it. He sat up all night staring at the television set his father had given him for no particular occasion except that he loved him. He just couldn't believe how much he had allowed himself to forget about his father. The next morning he looked Lee up and told him that he thought he knew something his father would like. Later that month, he didn't think he ever saw his father so happy as when he gave him that beautiful carved box and rosary that Lee had helped Hellboy pick up from Paul's religious goods store in Boston.

Things went along much better after that time. On Hellboy's birthday that same year in 1956, Trevor Broom received an interesting visit from the now retired senator who had given him so much trouble on Hellboy's fifth birthday. Broom didn't know what to make of this unexpected visit but, not wishing to appear rude, invited the senator in for a cup of tea. On this particular birthday Hellboy was not around, since he was still on his way back from a long and desperate forage into Argentina. Broom missed him very much and was glad that he was on his way home safely. He hated being apart from Hellboy on his birthday and around Christmas.

The senator sat stirring his tea without saying anything for a few moments. He then looked up and addressed Broom. "My wife and I cannot thank you enough for the excellent work that your organization is doing in Argentina. My son, Steven, our only child, works for the FBI and, though not directly associated with your Bureau, had been sent into Argentina to work with your agents. He was unfortunate enough to become trapped in the mountains by some terrible creature and if not for the resourcefulness of your own son, Hellboy, I would no longer have a son."

The senator stopped and nervously took a sip of his tea. "My son talks of nothing else except in praise of Hellboy. In fact, Steven claims that Hellboy single-handedly fought this creature and, when his gun malfunctioned during the fight, continued to fight against it using nothing but his fists until he finally defeated it. He then carried Steven, who had a broken leg, miles through the mountains to the nearest enclave of your organization. Steven also tells me that Hellboy asked after you and wished to have a message sent to you that he misses you and wishes that he could have been home for his birthday and the holidays."

He took another sip of his tea. "Professor Broom, I am so ashamed of my former attitude toward Hellboy. The child I once described as a 'monster from hell' had become an angel of protection for my son. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for the trouble that I have caused you and Hellboy in the past. Believe me, I am not an evil man. I abhor that which is evil and at the time I had foolishly convinced myself that what I was fighting against in Hellboy was truly evil; that we would be better off ridding ourselves of such a creature. If I had succeeded in destroying your son where would my son be now?"

Broom raised his hand, "Senator, I never thought you were an evil man. You were merely an ignorant one and, thank God, ignorance can be taught. I understand only too well that outward appearance can be hard to see beyond. I have been fighting against that on behalf of my son for most of his life."

Broom poured the senator another cup of tea and offered him a biscuit. This was a much better tea than he had once been plagued with in New Mexico and the biscuit was actually edible.

"I am grateful that the Almighty has seen fit", Broom continued, "to gift me with an ability to recognize evil when I see it no matter what garb it is dressed in. It has been very useful to me in my line of work. I am very seldom fooled by outward appearance. That was the one thing that so impressed me with Hellboy when I first encountered him as an infant; despite his outwardly hellish appearance there was no inherent evil in him. Like all children he was a blank slate for some other hand to write on. That may not have been what the person who originally conjured him intended, but that is what happened. I see the hand of Providence in this and have tried to the best of my ability to love him and raise him to be a force for good in this universe."

The senator stood. "Professor Broom, I believe you have succeeded in that task."

"Before I go I have a gift for your son." He handed Broom a package. "Hellboy gave my son the gun that he had been carrying in Argentina as a kind of souvenir since the damage to it was irreparable. My son tells me Hellboy made a joke out of calling it 'The Good Samaritan' since it used only special bullets designed for the killing of monsters and demons. My family fortune stems from gun-making and I have had this gun replicated."

Broom opened the package and inside found a beautiful handgun that was more than a mere replication of the original. It had a beautiful wooden grip with the sword-in-fist logo of the BPRD and was contained within a box that had the same logo and the words 'Good Samaritan' carved on the outside. This ended up being a favorite gun that Hellboy would carry for decades.

**Afterward**

The decade of the 1950s ended up being one of the busiest for Broom's Bureau because of the 'occult wars' being conducted against the Nazis in Argentina. These wars came to an end in 1958 when Hellboy, in one of the greatest triumphs of his career with the BPRD, beat a cybernetic Adolf Hitler to death with its own mechanical leg. The Second World War, which many thought ended with the death of Hitler in 1945, had finally come to an end.

However, there was plenty of work left for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in the cataloging of and, if necessary, intervention in supernatural occurrences from all over the globe. Hellboy remained one of the organization's top field agents, finally becoming a fully independent one in 1965 after the Bureau's move to Newark, New Jersey.

Trevor Broom had always had a slight limp due to being shot in the leg in 1944 by some Nazi soldier on that island off the coast of Scotland where he had first encountered Hellboy. The enforced bed rest in 1959 due to his long hospitalization for cancer exacerbated a latent arthritis stemming from this wound and Broom ended up using a cane for the rest of his life.

Broom had, before this year, always kept his explanations to Hellboy of his origins somewhat vague. At first this was because he thought Hellboy too young to understand; later Broom just found it easier never to address this issue. After he had been so ill in 1959, he realized that it was time that Hellboy knew everything that Broom knew about his origins.

So on December 23, 1959 Trevor Broom called Hellboy into his office. Hellboy had been expecting some sort of special celebration for his fifteenth birthday; instead he received an account of what actually happened on December 23, 1944 on that island off the coast of Scotland.

It is no understatement to say that Hellboy was dismayed at the probability of his actually being a demon from hell. He interrupted Trevor Broom from something further that he was going to say.

"Father, why didn't you just have me destroyed right then and there? How do you know that I'm not really evil, or that I don't have some evil hidden within me that I don't even know about?"

"Son," Trevor Broom replied, "That is exactly the one thing that do I know for sure about you; you are not evil; of that I was firmly convinced on that evening in 1944 and I am just as convinced about that now. What the people who did this conjuring intended on that evening is no longer pertinent to me. I am firmly convinced that in some strange way God has sent you to protect the world and it is my duty to raise you, love you, and prepare you for this task."

"Good," said Hellboy as he walked out of his father's office.

As far as Hellboy was concerned this was as much as he would ever need to know about himself—He was the son of Trevor Bruttenholm.


	4. Epilogue: contains spoilers

**Author's notes**: Don't read this Epilogue if you haven't seen the film and don't want to encounter SPOILERS. With one exception, none of the characters here are mine. But the dialogue is my own and is not from Del Toro's script. Hellboy's thoughts are also basically my own, but there is a little of it based on Yvonne Navarro's novelization of Hellboy. The final scene is my own and takes place after the end of the film.

While I was on vacation recently, I encountered this inspirational poem for the first time. Somehow, it seemed appropriate to my story. I insert it here, hoping the author won't mind, and dedicate it to Trevor Bruttenholm.

_The clock of life is wound but once,  
And no man has the power  
To tell just when the hands will stop  
At late or early hour._

To lose one's wealth is sad indeed,  
To lose one's health is more,  
To lose one's soul is such a loss  
That no man can restore.

The present only is our own,  
So Live, Love, toil with a will—  
Place no faith in 'Tomorrow'—  
For the clock may then be still.

_Robert H. Smith_

©1932-1982

**A Tale of 'Demon' Rights  
**  
**Epilogue**

**_Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense,  
Newark, New Jersey, November 1, 2004  
_**  
Hellboy knelt on the rug of his father's office in a pool of his father's blood.

He was gently holding the murdered Trevor Broom to his chest with his enormous right hand—holding him close the way Broom, his adoptive father, had held him close when he was too young to completely understand the meaning of death.

Hellboy noticed how light his father's body seemed in his arms. When had his father gotten so thin? Had he been ill recently and Hellboy so wrapped up in his own selfish concerns that he hadn't even noticed?

Hellboy placed his head on the chest of the man he loved more than anything else in the world and listened for his heartbeat—just the way he had listened for it when he was small and thought it was a clock that needed to be kept wound up.

All that came to his ears was a silence, a dead silence. The five-year-old child who still resided within wept for a broken promise.

Hellboy mourned the loss of the man who had never stopped loving him even if that had not been enough to keep his heart beating forever.

And how had Hellboy repaid that love? By disobeying his father, by not being there when his father had needed him the most.

How many times had Hellboy turned away from his father? How many times did the constant love of this gentle man bring him back?

"Father," he wanted to shout, "Open your eyes. Look at me. I'm here. I've come back."

Instead he whispered, "I told him I hated him. I didn't mean it. Please, let me stay with him."

But Hellboy knew it was too late; he had come back too late to let his father know how much he loved him and still needed him.

He tried to block out what was going on around him.

There were crime scene specialists, forensics experts, homicide investigators, FBI agents—what seemed a veritable crowd of people, all examining Trevor Broom's office collecting evidence related to his murder.

When they would approach the primary piece of evidence, Broom's body, Hellboy would hold it even closer as if to keep them from taking it away—as if never letting it go would make everything different.

Everyone would then back off, leaving Hellboy to his grief and his father's body.

Agent John Myers had only just met Hellboy and his father for the first time the day before. He was amazed at how much grief he felt for a man he had barely known.

Yesterday evening Broom had told him that he was, unknown to Hellboy, terminally ill and had brought Myers into his organization to be there for his son when he was gone.

He hadn't known that his death would end up happening so soon and so violently.

Tom Manning, the current liaison between the BPRD and the FBI, knew from first-hand experience how emotionally volatile the seven-foot demon could be. Even though this was a crime scene he had been reluctant to try to stop Hellboy from disturbing his father's body.

Manning was now becoming impatient. He walked up to Myers, "Jeez, he's just like a dog with a bone. Isn't there something you can do to get him out of there?"

Myers surprised himself by grabbing the man who was technically his superior and shoving him back away from Hellboy into the crowded hallway outside of the office.

"Good God, Manning," he said in a low voice, "Don't say that. He'll hear you. He is not a 'dog' and what he is holding is not a 'bone'. He is a man who has just lost his father, someone who has been with him every day of his life for almost sixty years. Give the guy some respect and let him take his own time to grieve. In fact, I would recommend getting everyone to clear out for a while so he can have some time alone. It might help."

Manning shrugged. In a way he knew Myers was right—he really should feel sorry for Hellboy's loss. Manning had known Broom and Hellboy for years and had seen father and son track and destroy more monstrous threats to human existence than he could count. And yet, like many, he could not see beyond Hellboy's own monstrous exterior.

Trevor Broom had always been able to see beyond that exterior—to see something very special in Hellboy that many could not. There were some others over the years that had followed in Broom's footsteps and had come to have affection and respect for the demon Broom loved as a son. Manning was not one of them. Freaks made him nervous.

He stepped forward into Broom's office, avoiding looking at the distraught Hellboy, and quietly shooed everyone else out of the room.

Professor Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm's funeral a few days later was a major affair attended by thousands from all over the world.

Most knew of him as one of the world's greatest folklorists and collector of tomes and artifacts. Some in attendance also knew of him as the world's greatest expert on Nazi occultism.

Only a select few knew of him as the founder and director of the FBI Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and 'father' to Hellboy, its chief field investigator and monster hunter.

These select few were also the men and women who accompanied the funeral procession as it left the BPRD's headquarters and proceeded to the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark where the funeral was to be held.

Somehow it seemed appropriate that it be storming that early November day, the day of Trevor Broom's funeral.

He loved thunderstorms, especially the cold storms that came late in the year. When asked why, he would always say that the most wonderful event of his life had occurred during the chaos of a wild December storm.

As the mourners left the building that secretly housed the BPRD, someone looking down from the roof above would have seen nothing more than a sea of black umbrellas that briefly parted to allow the coffin to be placed in the hearse.

The FBI would not permit Hellboy to attend anything related to his father's funeral and this brief parting of umbrellas was the last glimpse Hellboy had of Trevor Broom.

Among the mourners was the retired politician, now elderly, who had once worked under the name of 'Lee' as the FBI liaison. He looked out from under his umbrella as he left the building and saw Hellboy standing bare-headed in the pouring rain, defiantly stuck up on the roof like some modern-day Colossus. Hellboy had wanted to witness something of his father's funeral and had wanted people to see him—to see that he really did care about his father. He was clutching something in his left hand.

Lee was devastated that Tom Manning, the current FBI liaison, couldn't even see fit to let Hellboy participate in carrying his father's coffin out to the waiting hearse. All of the people gathered there knew exactly who Hellboy was. What was the FBI trying to prove by totally blocking, within the confines of the BPRD, Hellboy's access to his late father? Wasn't his father's Bureau the place Hellboy called home? Wasn't this disrespect of Hellboy's status as Broom's son exactly what Broom had spent a lifetime fighting against?

Lee raised his hand in a gesture of sympathy and wondered if Hellboy recognized or even saw him. Hellboy was as motionless as a statue, his eyes locked on the last glimpse he could see of his father's coffin. However, right before Lee turned aside, Hellboy shifted the position of his left hand as if intentionally. Lee then recognized what he was holding. It was the beautiful rosary he had taken Hellboy to purchase almost fifty years before as a Father's Day gift for Trevor Broom. Lee quickly entered his car, no longer able to bear witnessing Hellboy's immense grief.

Hellboy never moved from that spot on the roof. Some suspected that he had remained up there all day and all night. When he eventually did come down, he locked himself in his room and didn't sleep, eat, or speak to anyone for three days.

**_Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense,  
Newark, New Jersey, December 23, 2004_**

Hellboy climbed up the fire escape to the roof of the building that housed the BPRD headquarters. He had not been up there since the day of his father's funeral.

The night was very clear, very crisp, and the stars shone brightly in the sky. The weather was exactly the opposite of the stormy weather that had greeted him that same night sixty years before. He had always been taught by his father to consider this day his birthday.

This was Hellboy's first birthday without the man he always thought of as his father.

It was also his first birthday spent with Liz Sherman since she started to love him the way he always wanted her to.

It was a day that was both very happy and very sad at the same time and Hellboy often had difficulty dealing with more than one emotion at a time.

So here he was alone on the roof.

Hellboy thought of his birthday last year. His father had arrived to his room in the late morning bearing a brand-new DVD player and a stack of DVDs of their favorite films. Of course there was also a box of Baby Ruth candy bars.

They had worked together to set the machine up, eating candy bars while figuring out all the wires and connections. Popcorn eventually was sent in as well.

Father and son then curled up together on the mattress in the back of a pickup truck that served both as Hellboy's couch and bed and proceeded to watch four films. Or at least Hellboy watched four films while munching on chocolate and popcorn; his father eventually fell asleep slumped against his son's right side supported by that huge right hand.

When all four films were over, Hellboy had picked up his sleeping father from the bed and carried him out to his own room. He placed him down on the bed and covered him up with a blanket.

Rather than walking out immediately, he looked down on his sleeping father. Many decades before when Broom had been very ill, Hellboy had thought that his father looked old. Now he realized that the man he called Father was, indeed, old.

For some reason Hellboy never quite understood, he did something that night he had not done since he had been young. He knelt down next to his father's bed and placing his head on his chest listened to his father's heartbeat as he had done on his fifth birthday. Hellboy never considered at the time that this would end up being the last birthday he would ever have a chance to do this.

Standing on the roof lost in his memories, Hellboy realized that his father had never broken even one promise that he had ever made him.

Trevor Broom had promised his young son that he would never let anything or anyone separate them. And he accomplished that even though he practically spent all of his savings to do it—just as he swore he would.

He had also sworn to his son that all would recognize him as a sentient being of equal status to any human and he had accomplished this. Not always as well as he would have liked, but at least never again did the young Hellboy have to live in fear of being experimented on as if he were something even less than an animal.

Fifty-five years earlier on this same night his father had promised him that he would always love him and it was this love that kept his heart beating. At the time Hellboy had understood this as a promise to live forever.

Hellboy knew that his father, fervent Catholic that he was, believed in life after death. He knew that his father had never stopped loving him and believed that he would take that love even beyond death.

He closed his eyes and contemplated the warm darkness inside of himself. Very quiet, almost at the edge of hearing, he thought that he could hear a heart beating.

"Good," Hellboy whispered to himself and then descended from the roof to begin making a new life without the father he had always had with him, the father that he now knew he would never really be without.

_This is finally the end of A Tale of 'Demon' Rights. I saw the movie four times when it came out. After writing this story exploring the past relationship between Trevor Bruttenholm and Hellboy, I don't think I will ever be able to see this movie in the same way again. Kudos to Mike Mignola and Guillermo del Toro for coming up with characters that have so much depth to explore and write tropes on._

Thanks to all for reading,

Beth Palladino


End file.
